The Aeronautical Museum Gianni Caproni

Founded in 1929, the Museum has a dual leadership, as the first aviation museum and as the first corporate museum in Italy. Born to preserve the historical and technological heritage of the society founded by pioneer and industrialist Gianni Caproni (1886-1957), it soon broadened its interest in every aspect of the history of flight. Timina Guasti, Caproni’s wife, took care for over half a century of the Museum at the beginning located in Taliedo, near Milan, then in Vizzola Ticino, next to the area today occupied by the intercontinental Malpensa airport, and finally opened in Trento in 1988. The current location next to Mattarello airport was inaugurated on October 3, 1992, and extends in an area of over 1.400 square meters. From spring 1999 the Museum has become a territorial section of the Natural Science Museum of Trento.

The museum offers a fascinating and educative visit from many points of view: the reconstruction of the history of the aeronautical industry’s technological development, the representation of the strong personalities of the protagonists of this development, up to the strong impact of flying on society and on art and artists. Many aircraft exhibited in the Museum are rare or unique in the world, or are linked to important aeronautical heroic actions. Since Caproni biplane Ca.6 (1911) to the jetfighter Lockheed F-104G Starfighter (1960), the Museum takes you - in the space of a few metres - from aircraft of wood cloth-covered, with a speed of 40 km/h, to those entirely in metal for over 2.300 km/h. From the ceiling hang down a Breda 19 (1930) of the first Italian acrobatics patrols, precursors of the current Frecce Tricolori, and the small plane Caproni F.5 Trento (1952), built entirely of wood but already equipped with a turbine engine. Nearby, the Savoia Marchetti SM.80bis (1933) and the Caproni Ca.100 (1928) tell the story of seaplanes, planes designed for starting and landing on the water, once extremely common but now relegated to a few specialized applications. Equally noteworthy are the Ansaldo SVA 5 (1918), the protagonist of the 'Flight on Vienna' inspired and guided by Gabriele D'Annunzio in 1918, the Fokker D. VIII (1918), the only existing copy in the world of one of the best aircraft of the First WWI, or the trimotor SIAI Marchetti S.79 (1934), recovered in Lebanon in 1993.

Alongside the collection of historical aircraft, the Museum "Gianni Caproni" has a selected collection of art, consisting of works produced by some of the most important Italian artists of the early Twentieth, particularly painters and sculptors of the futurist movement. Moreover, the Museum has a rich archive of books, photographs and historical memories of various kinds, which further highlights the uniqueness of The Aeronautical Museum “Gianni Caproni”. In the Museum is also located the reconstruction of a propellers’ workshop of the Twenties.

To public and schools are offered a wide range of educational activities, ranging from the history of aeronautics to the history of arts, reaching to astronomy and aerospace exploration.