In tune with Italy? Julius von Schlosser and the Musikinstrumentensammlung in the Neue Hofburg

This article discusses the positioning of the new display of musical instruments, as part of the Imperial Museums in Vienna, in the 1920s, and specifically how Von Schlosser, as curator responsible for this new display, related to the way other collections of musical instruments were shown in museums and other institutions in Italy and the rest of Europe. It makes clear that Von Schlosser treated the musical instruments as mute objects, to be admired only from the visual point of view. In fact, he ignored the European-wide movement of museums with musical instruments to actually make them available for musical practice and thus use them in the research on historical musical performance.