The survey aims to draw a clear picture of the types of existing missionary museums in order to encourage exchanges and possibly develop guidelines to retain their identity and purpose. Fr George Menamparampil will coordinate this research work.
The Don Bosco Ethnological Missionary Museum has its origins in the Vatican Missionary Exposition of 1925 and in the Exhibition on the 50th anniversary of the Salesian Missions in 1926 in Turin. Pope Pius XI solicited the participation of Religious Institutes towards this cause. The Salesian contribution was much appreciated and the Osservatore Romano of 31 August 1925 published a long article on the contribution of the Salesian missions in America to the Vatican Missionary Exposition.
The Missionary exhibition set up in Valdocco in 1926 was intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the First Salesian Missionary Expedition of 1875. After the Turin exhibition closed on 6 October 1926, the objects were kept in a warehouse-museum in Valdocco.
In 1941 the whole collection was transferred to Colle Don Bosco, so that it was protected from the bombings of the Second World War. In 1988, the year of the Centenary of Don Bosco's death, the exhibition was rearranged in renovated exhibition halls. And in January 2000, on the occasion of the Great Jubilee, the current exhibition was inaugurated, and enriched further in 2016 with new multimedia content.
