Sickle-shaped Maori flat mace with a carved handle adorned with three convexities. The surfaces are decorated in carving with groups of three lines alternating with triangles in relief, arranged on three oblique registers separated from each other by three horizontal bands. Along the inner side of the weapon is carved a stylised figure symbolising a mythological spirit linked to the weapon's spiritual power (mana), which increased in proportion to success in combat. The figure has circular earrings, eyes, a nose and a beak-like mouth from which a tongue protrudes; intertwined tridactile hands clasp the shapeless body. Experts in hand-to-hand combat, the Maoris have devised a wide variety of short clubs carved out of wood - broadly known as patu - designed to deliver sudden, powerful blows from the top down. The wahaika is a distinct type of patu worn daily on the belt, which means 'fish mouth'. These weapons were passed down from generation to generation as family heirlooms.
The multiplication of curvilinear motifs, spirals, and the coverage of the entire surface with fretwork or engraved decorations is characteristic of Maori production, in particular in wood. Historically Maori art has been described by referencing the characteristics of its external appearance. However, more recently the publication of works by Maori scholars has provided interpretations and insights that reveal the complexity of plastic symbols in social, political and religious systems that must be understood in their entirety.

The Turkish salon of Captain d'Albertis is a romantic evocation of a nomadic Middle Eastern world that fascinated the West of the time as documented by many Italian, European and North American ‘Arab’, ‘Moorish’, ‘Indian’ or ‘Turkish’ salons. This world also fascinated Enrico de Albertis, at least since 1869, when at the invitation of the Khedivè of Egypt and Sudan, he attended the celebrations for the inauguration of the Suez Canal, where ‘a world of people , of the most varied costumes, bumped into each other, squeezed into the narrow meanders, between tents and tents', and where “tubas, turbans, fez and tarbush, stifelius and kaftan, bournous and galabie brushed against each other, mingled in common mutual harmony”. It is no coincidence that when he was only 25 years old, he would be the first Italian commander to steer an Italian boat through the Suez Canal and in the same year 1871 he was present in Cairo at the first performance of Aida. The cabinetmaker Giuseppe Parvis, who was active with his factory in Cairo, probably also played a role in the reconstruction of the salon, where the Captain visited him after his great performances at international exhibitions in Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia and the Italian Exhibition in Milan in 1881.
The use of textiles to shape the rooms, such as the ceiling canopy and the fact that this living room overlooks an outdoor space, reveals the captain's familiarity with the architectural language of the Arab worlds that are evoked here, hovering between neo-Gothic and exotic, between copies and originals. The Turkish Lounge is a particular room in the home of the Captain D’Albertis: it embodies the charm of the exotic for the late nineteenth century.

Constructed in the form of a dialogue between the mythical Emperor Huangdi (2698 - 2596 B.C.) and his Prime Minister Qi Bo, the text introduces the fundamental philosophical themes of the classical Chinese tradition, the symbolic vision of nature and the body, the dynamic relationship between the elements for the harmony of health, the correspondence between the natural ‘Five Movements’ and the theory of Yin and Yang, the pathway to wholeness of body and mind, the analysis of Qi, the main elements of physiology and basic diagnostic and curative models such as phytotherapy and acupuncture.
In the central part of the text, the body is described as a ‘natural landscape’, organised in the form of a state governed by a ruler assisted by officials, ministers and assistants who must act in constant harmony and interrelation for the protection and promotion of health.
For good care of the integrity and quality of life, it is necessary to ‘know the Dao’, to know how to ‘adjust according to Yin and Yang’, to be able to see ‘the complete body and mind’, to take care of health ‘before the disease germinates’; of the doctor who begins his work when the disease has already developed, ‘it is said of him that he is ignorant’. Annotated edition of the Huangdi Neijng 黃帝內經, the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, cultural foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

The installation was the result of a dialogue between the museum's planner and designer Massimo Chiappetta and Gerald Mac Master, a Cree artist from the Canadian Plains. Gerald accepted the invitation to interpret the museum's collections from his people and present in Genoa since 1892. The pieces came from the American Catholic Missions for Colombian celebrations in the last century and were donated to the city at the end. The display leads to the female and child world of some South Dakota peoples, whose artefacts, however, are laid on a bed of marble dust, as a sign of homage to peoples we have exterminated with alcohol, disease, guns and greed for raw materials and territories to conquer for our own good. Incorporating the indigenous voice into the transmission of the collections, bringing together multiple voices and multiple perspectives was crucial for us to broaden both the vision and interpretation.

This painting illustrates the influence of paintings on canvas, of European and specifically Spanish origin on indigenous Peruvian painters. With the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores in the 16th century, new forms of artistic expression made their way into Peru, and taking inspiration from European masters, the Cuzco school was created in the Inca capital. After the fall of the Inca Empire at the hands of the Conquistadores, over the following decades and centuries, a creolized art developed in Peru, in which indigenous elements were combined with elements of European origin. It is in the wake of this that this seventeenth-century canvas came into being, in which the presence of pure gold betrays the strong Spanish influence, giving it light and warmth and where the artist has ventured on a theme that has shaped not only the Christian faith, but the whole of western culture, of which it had by now become part. Oil on canvas depicting Christ crucified dressed in a loincloth (perizonium) and surrounded by vases of flowers and candelabra.

The skull-shaped protome, made by volcanic tuff, comes from the Mayan site of Copán (Honduras), an important city-state that had its apogee between 435 and 805 AD. It has been in Genoa since 1892, when the American Catholic Missions, participating in the Colombian celebrations of the last century, sent ethnographic artefacts and archaeological finds from the Americas to the Genoa International Exhibition, which they donated to the city at the end of the exhibition.
In Mayan tradition, the skulls of slain enemies were displayed as a trophy. This skull was presented together with 18 others in a T-shaped panel decorating a pyramid, as revealed by the reconstruction of Harvard University and the laboratory of the Instituto Hondureño de Arquelogia e Historia in Copán. In collaboration with them, the cast of the protome was donated to the Museo de la Escultura in Copàn Ruinas to reassemble the panel. Volcanic tuff sculpture in the shape of a human skull with engraved orbits, cheekbones and teeth, and carved nasal cavities. There are cream and blackish traces on the cheekbone and second tooth on the left.

Ornament of great value worn by chiefs and men of rank, not only in Fiji but also in Tonga and Samoa. The necklace consists of a bundle of woven plant fiber cords into which twenty-two teeth of a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) polished into the shape of tusks are threaded through the through holes. Each tooth is locked in place and spaced from the next by a knot of plant fiber. Like other ornaments made from cetacean teeth, wāsekaseka or wāseisei necklaces were intended for chiefs and men of rank in Fiji. Production of this ornamentation developed in Tonga in the early 19th century, probably due to the introduction of metal tools and an increase in the supply of sperm whale teeth: ivory was imported and no longer came only from stranded specimens. Sperm whale ivory replaced the less refined vuasagal necklaces of the earlier period, which were made from the teeth of other cetaceans, such as the pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhyncus) or the pseudorca (Pseudorca crassidens).

 

On the ground floor of the museum, Room 7 houses a large panoramic showcase dedicated to Italian Ungulates. This term defines herbivorous mammals with hooves. The Italian Ungulates are inserted here in a space that recreates the specimens’ natural habitat with an appropriate painted background: the mountain scenery hosts two robust ibexes, a group of Alpine chamois and two Abruzzo chamois. In the center, in the foreground, you can see a family group of mouflon, present in Sardinia and in the rest of the peninsula with numerous introduced populations. In a clearing there are a group of deer, two fallow deer and a pair of roe deer. At the edge of the forest, a herd of wild boars, which are increasingly seen in urban centers. A curiosity: in the collection of the Museum there is a specimen of Abruzzo chamois from Barrea, L'Aquila, where it was collected in 1892 and chosen to describe the new subspecies of Abruzzo in 1899.

 

The Mammals exhibition concludes with a large selection of marsupials. The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), also known as the Tasmanian wolf, is the largest carnivorous marsupial of modern times, whose original distribution area included Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. The probable cause of its disappearance in Australia and New Guinea was competition with domestic dogs that became wild after being introduced by aborigines thousands of years ago. Tasmanian farmers believed the thylacine was one of the main predators of sheep and so it was subjected to intense hunting, although this was – and remains – very controversial. By 1963, the thylacine was already confined to the most inaccessible part of the south of the island. The reasons for its disappearance were, in addition to hunting, the introduction of diseases, the modification of its habitat and competition with the domestic dogs of the settlers.
The last confirmed capture of a wild specimen took place in 1933, while the species became extinct in captivity on 7 September 1936 in the Hobart Zoo. In 1986, the thylacine was declared to be officially extinct.
The specimen on display was donated to the museum in 1883 and is one of the only three specimens in Italy. There are only 80 specimens prepared in a lifelike manner in the world.

 

 

 

Going up to the first floor, we meet a Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) caught in the Gulf of Genoa in the early 1900s. The color is white in the lower part of the body and dark in the upper part, with a clear and jagged separation line. Thanks to this double coloring, the white shark is practically invisible both from above and from below. Seen from above, infact, it camouflages itself with the dark sea depths while from below it merges with the bright surface of the sea, allowing it to implement different attack strateg