Geographical relevance of the suitable network for Milan's ecclesiastical museums - looking ahead to Milan 2012, 1700th anniversary of the Edictum Mediolanense

In recent decades museology and geography have both, each in their own area, dealt with networks. Museology has in fact focused extensively on the efficacy of shared management for adding value to the activities of museum institutions, while geography has reinterpreted the concept of territory as an effect of the networks which stretch out across the world in the postmodern society. In this work, after a discussion on the concepts of museum network as developed by the two disciplines (paragraph 1), consideration was given to the case of particular types of museums, ecclesiastical types, part of the scenario in Italy, and more specifically the ecclesiastical museums of Milan (paragraph 2). Observations by the authors have led to the conclusion that, by taking advantage of the opportunity of the forthcoming anniversary of the Edictum Mediolanense (313 AD), the network of Milan’s ecclesiastical museums could be created appropriately on the basis of the concept of tolerance which, like a fil rouge, weaves a link between the different museum institutions (paragraph 3).