The essay retraces the role of music at late nineteenth-century universal exhibitions, with particular attention to the 1888 Emilia Exhibition in Bologna. In this context, music was not only a form of entertainment or a national symbol, but also an occasion for encounters between different traditions. The display of “extra-European” instruments alongside Western ones re3lected both an interest in cultural diversity and the Eurocentric assumptions that shaped their interpretation. The International Music Exhibition of Bologna represented a unique case in the European landscape, owing to the centrality accorded to music and to the richness of the collections, which were later incorporated into the International Museum and Library of Music, where they are still preserved and enhanced today. The essay highlights some of the key figures involved in the formation of the collection, outlines the current state of cataloguing work, and examines the relationship between calligraphy and music in selected Chinese instruments, which constitute the largest portion of the holdings. The analysis brings to light the connections between exhibition history, museum practices, and ethnomusicological and organological research, offering new perspectives on the construction and circulation of musical knowledge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.