The Civic Museum of Natural History of Milan is the oldest Milanese Civic Museum and is today the center of the activities of the Garden of Sciences which includes two didactic laboratories, Paleolab and Biolab, and the Ulrico Hoepli Planetarium. It was founded on 7 May 1838 thanks to donations from the collections of the Milanese nobleman Giuseppe De Cristoforis and the botanist Giorgio Jan. The collections include samples of mineralogy, paleontology, zoology, botany, as well as tools and books. The opening to the public dates back to September 1844 in the former Convent of Santa Marta on the occasion of the VI Congress of Italian Scientists which that year carried out the works in Milan. Starting from the second half of the twentieth century, the museum collections were enriched thanks to research and acquisition campaigns. Certainly one of the most important projects was that of the Director Cesare Conci, who allowed the expansion of the museum with new paleontological and botanical sections. Since 2010, the Civic Museum of Natural History has been incorporated into the Polo dei Musei Scientifici together with the Planetarium and the Aquarium.