Michele Cavaleri

Cavaleri was born in 1813 and studied law. He became a prominent lawyer in Milan, wrote several works on legal matters and sat as an elected member of Parliament, initially for the Kingdom of Sardinia and subsequently for the Kingdom of Italy.

Cavaleri had a great interest in art and assembled a vast collection of objects – paintings, sculpture, antiquities and books – at his residence on the Corso Magenta in Milano. At an early stage he conceived the idea that the collection might benefit his fellow citizens and the bookplate he used reads “Museo Cavaleri”. In the early 1870s he did indeed open his collection to the public at his own expense. He then entered into negotations with the city council of Milan for the purchase of his collection as a public museum for a sum which was significantly below the market value. However the council finally declined the offer early in 1873. As a result, it was Ernesto Cernuschi who purchased the collection in that same year (Cavaleri could no longer afford the costs), and it was shipped to Paris, where Cernuschi resided, to be added to his existing collection of East Asian art. Cavaleri then entered into a protracted legal dispute with the city council. He subsequently published an account of the whole process, (this appeared in stages between 1875 and 1883), along with a description of the collections concerned.

Cavaleri himself died in 1890. Cernuschi too died in 1896 and although his oriental collections were preserved intact in the Musée Cernuschi in Paris, his heirs sold off much of the remainder, including, presumably, the volume now owned by the Brotherton Library.