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CRESPI BONSAI MUSEUM
The Crespi Bonsai Museum is renowned worldwide and hosts the largest and most comprehensive collection of bonsai outside of Japan. These exceptional, unique, and rare specimens are works created by highly regarded masters of the past and present, many of which are over 100 years old. Opened on May 26, 1991, the Crespi Bonsai Museum was the world's first permanent bonsai museum.
Buy your ticket to enter the museum directly on-site or online.
Crespi Bonsai Museum
S.S. del Sempione,37 Parabiago (Mi) - Italy.
Monday: 2:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday - Saturday: 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM / 2:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Sunday: 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM
(except August)
Free for children up to 12 years old and over 70 years old. Guided tours for individuals or groups can be organized by reservation.
- Surface area: approx. 600 m2
- Materials: exposed concrete, natural Barge stone, steel, glass.
- Slate tables (external gallery) - Wooden tables (internal gallery)
- Pot room: contains both Chinese and Japanese pots
- Epochs: Qing (1644-1735), Tokugawa (1615-1868), Meiji (1868-1912)
- Tokonoma corner: recreates the display niche of the traditional Japanese house
Crespi Bonsai Museum Collection
The Crespi Bonsai collection is made up of around two hundred works that are exhibited in rotation according to the season, as each species has a better time to be exhibited. This is the most fascinating and surprising aspect of the permanent exhibition of living art at the Crespi Bonsai Museum, which changes appearance every season, taking on new colors and perfecting itself year after year, thanks to the careful attention of Luigi Crespi and the improvements made by master Nobuyuki Kajiwara, director of the museum and professor of the three-year courses at the Crespi Bonsai University. A prominent place is occupied by the reconstruction of the "toko-no-ma," the corner of the traditional Japanese home used for displaying objects with a high spiritual content. The collection is completed by precious tansu furniture and various furnishings, including antique Japanese lanterns, while outside the gallery, the eye can glide among the stones of the Zen garden created by Luigi Crespi with original materials imported from Japan. The Crespi Bonsai Museum's ever-changing collection is enriched year after year with particularly valuable masterpieces.
Although it is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire new centuries-old masterpieces, increasingly jealously guarded in Japan as symbols of traditional culture.
In recent years, Luigi Crespi has had the honor of receiving from Daizo Iwasaki, a well-known collector and honorary president of the World Bonsai Friendship Federation, owner of the Takasagoan bonsai garden, some extremely valuable specimens: two Pinus pentaphylla (one very famous and placed in a vase of exceptional value), a Taxus cuspidata, and two Juniperus chinensis Itoigawa. Since 2011, the Crespi Bonsai Museum has been part of the prestigious Grandi Giardini Italiani circuit. Among the most important and prestigious specimens: the thousand-year-old Ficus retusa Linn, arrived in Italy in 1986 after ten years of negotiations; the Ginkgo biloba, the first bonsai purchased by Luigi Crespi, more than fifty years ago and which inspired the extraordinary museum collection; the Pinus pentaphylla from Miyajima donated to the Crespi Bonsai Museum by Daizo Iwasaki in March 2009 as a sign of esteem and appreciation for the work done by Luigi Crespi in spreading the culture of bonsai in Italy and Europe; the Taxus from Mount Ishizuchi from Daizo Iwasaki's Takasagoan garden; Sageretia theezans donated by master Ng Shing Fat in 2012, who wanted to offer the Crespi Bonsai Museum six exceptional penjing specimens.
The millennial Ficus retusa Linn
Arrived in Italy in 1986 from China, after a negotiation lasting more than 10 years, this Ficus retusa Linn is a unique specimen of exceptional value. Known on every continent, it is the jewel in the crown of the Crespi collection. Among its many accolades, it received the prestigious "Honorary Award" from an international jury at Euroflora '86. It is an exceptional tree whose origins are lost in the memory of generations of expert bonsai growers. Cared for centuries with the most appropriate techniques, it has achieved unparalleled perfection and harmony. Its spectacular trunk, composed of a dense network of aerial roots, is housed in a unique pot, crafted and fired from a single block: the largest bonsai pot in the world. The daily care of this ancient and unusual bonsai requires profound experience and exquisite sensitivity to meet the tree's needs in terms of humidity and temperature throughout the year. The harmonious form, the result of a gradual process of adaptation to its environment, and the maturity or patina that emanates from the tree, make the Prince of the Crespi Bonsai Museum a priceless masterpiece. Its distinctive personality moves visitors who enter the glass case and inspires great respect for its long existence and mysterious history. Important figures in Europe and the United Arab Emirates have asked to purchase the specimen, but Luigi Crespi maintains that the tree is part of the history of the family and the company, and therefore cannot leave its "home."
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Ginkgo biloba
The Ginkgo biloba bonsai is beautiful in all seasons: in winter, when the only thing visible is the essential silhouette of the trunk with its dark gray, grooved and fissured bark, which conveys great strength; in spring, when the tender green leaves begin to unfurl in the sun on the bare, gray branches; in summer, when it displays its dense foliage; and then in autumn, when the leaves, before falling, turn a dazzling golden yellow. The globular fruits, initially greenish and then yellow when ripe, appear on plants bearing female flowers. The specific epithet, biloba, aptly describes the morphology of the leaves: flat, fan-shaped with radial veins, partially incised in the center. It appeared on earth in the Mesozoic Era, long before conifers, and is a primordial species, unique to the Ginkgoaceae family, probably of Chinese origin. In Japan, where tradition has given it a certain sacredness, the Ginkgo is often grown near Buddhist temples. This ancient specimen in the formal upright style was the first bonsai purchased by Luigi Crespi, over fifty years ago: the first tree that inspired the extraordinary museum collection.
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Pinus pentaphylla of Miyajima
The Miyajima White Pine is a species prized for its beautiful foliage and rarity. It grows on the island of Miyajima, south of Hiroshima, famous for the floating tori gate marking the entrance to the Itsukushima-jinja Shinto shrine and representing one of the "three best views" in Japan. Originally part of the renowned collection of Mr. Morobayashi of Sedaka (Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan), the pine, which later became one of the very rare specimens in the private collection of Daizo Iwasaki, a renowned Japanese collector, was donated to the Crespi Bonsai Museum in March 2009 as a sign of esteem and appreciation for the work of its founder, Luigi Crespi, in spreading bonsai culture in Italy and Europe. The trunk and main branches of this specimen are of the Black Pine, as can be seen from the appearance of the trunk bark, while the elegant foliage grafted onto the branches is of the Miyajima White Pine. This particular process is called "changing clothes" in Japanese. The tree with a sinuous trunk is placed in a rectangular brown stoneware vase with a relief decoration: it is a fine reproduction of a famous ancient Chinese vase.
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Taxus of the mount Ishizuchi
This exceptional yew specimen comes from Daizo Iwasaki's Takasagoan garden. It was first exhibited at the Crespi Bonsai Museum in 2009, the year it was imported from Japan. Most Japanese yews originate in Hokkaido (northern Japan), and the same is true for yew bonsai masterpieces. However, in this case, the tree was originally collected on Mount Ishizuchi on the island of Shikoku. At 1,982 meters, it is the highest peak on the island and is also a place of pilgrimage as it is one of the seven sacred peaks of the country. The unparalleled charm of this yew stems from the peculiar formation of the deadwood on its trunk. The left side of the deadwood, practically outside the container, was originally a root that penetrated the ground. When Mr. Iwasaki first saw the specimen, it was extremely weakened by the lack of foliage. Abundant fertilization and diligent care soon yielded good results, and the tree regained vigor, steadily increasing the volume of its crown. The specimen has now reached a good level of refinement and reminds the observer of its native landscape, Mount Ishizuchi.
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Liquidambar formosana
A large, thick-barked tree, common in the wild in temperate zones of southern China and Taiwan. Liquidambar formosana can be easily distinguished from the American species, Liquidambar styracifula (which is easier to grow in our climate) by its three-lobed leaves, rather than five. Although the Chinese species is still rare in bonsai collections, it attracts great interest among enthusiasts for its leaves, which are emerald green in spring and summer and yellow, or sometimes red, in late autumn before they fall. This 85-year-old informal upright bonsai features an impressive tachiagari, from the lower trunk to the first branch. The entire sinuous trunk with rough bark contrasts with the slender branches and soft foliage.
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Rosa banksiae lutea
Introduced to the West from China in 1825, Rosa banksiae lutea enchants with its extraordinary early spring flowering, when its long, erect yet flexible shoots are covered in thousands of small, pale yellow, pompom-shaped flowers arranged in clusters. Rosa banksiae lutea brings a welcome touch of yellow to the hybrid landscape. The cold-hardiness of its tender green leaves is also legendary. In bonsai, it is prized for the robustness of its naturally rough trunk, which allows it to assume a twisted shape that becomes increasingly interesting as it ages. The contrast between the lightness of its shoots and the delicacy of its flowers is truly remarkable.
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