Leaving the places usually dedicated to the exhibition and transmission of our heritage, such as museums or short-term exhibitions, to put the research results within everybody’s reach. These are the principles inspired by the archaeologists who conceived the exhibition, Filippo Maria Gambari and Barbara Grassi of the Superintendence, who gave the idea to the architects Davide Bruno and Luca Panteghini, who developed an original exhibition proposal: a synthesis of tradition and innovation. Claudia Mangani and Diego Voltolini developed the method of communication, short but easily understandable for the general audience, always faithful to the archaeological data. The many multi-multimedia presentations have been created by StudioBase2 with the collaboration of Simona Morandi and have the task of explaining, through images, traditions and rites in vogue in the late Bronze Age, introducing us to a distant reality. This challenge of valorization, which saw the unconditional support of the Lombardy Region, was magnanimously accepted by FNM and SEA, two companies that, understanding the importance of this cultural operation and also going beyond their institutional mission, have allowed, with their continuous collaboration, the unfolding of all the stages of this stimulating journey from the discovery of the finds to their exhibition.

For this reason the working group was composed not only of archaeologists, draughtsmen, surveyors and photographers who must faithfully document all the stages of the discovery, but also by restorers who intervene promptly, sometimes during the excavation, on the most delicate finds to ensure their conservation, and by specialists from different naturalistic disciplines who study preserved organic and inorganic remains. In the case of Malpensa, to speed up the work on site, while using the utmost caution in order to collect as much data as possible, more than twenty urns were recovered in block with their contents, for the collection of samples for anthropological and paleobotanical analyses: an operation that would have required a lot of time if carried out in the field. To correctly organize the work in the laboratory, the urns were x-rayed, so as to identify any bronze ornaments inside. The micro-excavation was then started: each phase of the work was coordinated to allow the retrieval of the finds and samples with all the necessary precautions; in the laboratory the restorers, Cristina Leoni and Ana Hilar, consolidated and reassembled the various fragments, recomposing the finds, sometimes with the use of integrations in compatible and reversible materials. Although the deceased had been cremated on a pyre, the anthropologists have in some cases been able to recognize, from the preserved bones, the sex of the deceased and his/her approximate age. Thanks to the paleobotanical analyses of Mauro Rottoli, at least three graves were found to contain rose hips, laid inside the urn, and the remains of the wood used for the funeral pyre, in particular oak, ash, beech and hornbeam, in addition to small shrubs, such as hazel, used to light the pyre: these constituted part of the local arboreal heritage. Even the surrounding land is a natural archive of extraordinary importance: in the Late Bronze Age the area of ​​the necropolis had already been partly deforested, probably due to the exploitation of the area for agricultural and settlement purposes.

The most significant contribution is represented by the traces they have left in the Lombardy area. If in the initial phase of Protogolasecca (XII-X century BC) the settlements, documented in very limited numbers, were probably small scattered villages, each of which refers to a small or medium-sized group of burials, during the Iron Age (IX-IV century BC) the situation progressively changes: the three main Golasecchiani districts become more and more defined, one between Golasecca-Sesto Calende-Castelletto Ticino, one in the Como area and, in Swiss territory, the Ticino one. The first two territories are characterized in the VII and VI centuries BC as important centres; Como was later to develop an urban-like structure.The Golasecchian Celts developed a particular propensity for trade, with the organization of a dense exchange network , also thanks to the river Ticino that became a major axis for wide ranging routes; they became the link between the Etruscan and Italic peoples, bearers of customs typical of the aristocracies influenced by Greek and Mediterranean traditions, and the Celtic populations stationed beyond the Alps, conveying, among other things, the customs linked to the consumption of wine and to the banquet ritual. During the first half of the V century BC there is a collapse and depopulation of the western Golasecchian area and the consequent shift in the centre of control of the trade network with the Etruscan world from the Ticino region to the plain with the foundation of Milan, attributed to the mythical Belloveso, and the other main Lombard cities, such as Bergamo. With the establishment of the federal state of the Insubri, in the IV-III century BC, Milan (the Latin Mediolanum) will become its capital and will have more and more importance up to the present day. Among the legacies of the Golasecchian Celts we cannot forget the use of bracae, real trousers, in an moment in which, for all the Italic peoples, also for men, tunics and skirts were common, along with the production of beer of high alcohol content, the beginning of the modern way of aging and consuming wine in barrels and jars for oxygenation, and finally the spread of blue cheese.