Sanatorium's Museum

The museum tells the story of the sanatoria built in Valtellina during the 20th century to fight tuberculosis thanks to the pure air and sun of the Alps. A collection of period objects and images bears witness to the birth and activity of the former Sanatorium Village of Sondalo, now the "Eugenio Morelli" hospital. The visit path takes place in the rooms that were once designated for patient admission.

During the opening days of summer 2025, the Museum will host the permanent exhibition "The Buried Giant - The Stele of Migiondo," an important artifact from the Copper Age, one of the most significant prehistoric archaeological finds in Lombardy. 

FIRST PART

The first part of the journey is dedicated to disease.
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, tuberculosis ceased to be seen as a romantic illness – the 'mal sottile' – and took on the characteristics of a true health emergency for the new industrial and urban society. Since the 1960s, antibiotics have allowed for increasingly effective treatment, but TB is now a global disease that causes over a million deaths each year.

SECOND PART

The second part of the journey is dedicated to treatment and sanatoria.
Initially, sanatoria were built to prevent contagion by isolating patients comfortably. In the 20th century, architecture developed according to the principles of functionalism and followed the evolution of medicine: air, light, and sun entered buildings to strengthen patients and promote healing. Treatment was based on rest, nutrition, and pure air, known as the three "L"...Wool, bed, milk. Until antibiotics were effective against the infection, the sanatorium was the main treatment tool, a true machine à guérir. Its design was a collaboration between the doctor and the architect.

LAST PART

The last part is dedicated to the Sanatorium Village of Sondalo. The complex functioned as a sanatorium for 25 years, from 1946 until 1971, when it was transformed into a general hospital. The objects of care in the veranda (the deck chair, the blankets, the headphones for listening to radio broadcasts) are displayed alongside technical drawings and photographs of the large construction site that transformed the hillside above Sondalo into a true health city between 1932 and 1940. The journey concludes with the painting “Fishermen in Sampieri,” painted by the Sicilian Ugo Caruso in 1954 while he was a patient in Sondalo. The saturated colors, stern gazes, and imposing posture of the characters seem to vehemently allude to the contradictions and the uncertain perspective of the 'outside' world, which the author, isolated in his temporary alpine refuge, appears to gaze upon with nostalgia.

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