The regional collection consists of about two thousand objects related to popular culture in Sardinia, mainly dating from the second half of the 19th century and the first half-century. Inside, the museum preserves 731 textile artifacts and 1266 pieces of jewelry, a modest number of tools, furniture and carving works.
The collection is named after the magistrate Luigi Cocco (Villasor 1883 – Cagliari 1959), who from the 1920s until the last days of his life devoted himself to collecting folk art objects of Sardinia, initially only in Villasor, then gradually in different parts of the island.
In 1937 a large part of the collection was presented in ethnographic exhibitions of Sardinia. In 1948 the collection, by decree of the Minister of Education, was notified as a “complex of exceptional artistic and historical interest.” Following the enactment of Regional Law 18/1954 it was purchased by the Region of Sardinia. Since 2010 it has been permanently housed in the Citadel of Museums, in a location “appropriate to the importance of the collection and worthy of the decorum and nobility of the city of Cagliari.”
