Verona Museums
Verona in relation to its size has a considerable number of museums and exhibition spaces. Beyond the number, the content and settings of these museums, often make them very unique places not only in Italy but also internationally. Together with the guides of Verona, the city museums can become insights and additions to the usual guided tours in Verona, or represent separate routes, to be planned in advance. Below are just few suggestions for orientation within the vast range of museums in Verona.
Castelvecchio Museum
The Museum of Castelvecchio is the main museum in Verona, housed inside the fortress built by the Scala family in the mid-14th century. The rooms of the castle, from the end of the 19th century, became home to collections of Veronese art from various eras that can still be admired there.The sculpture gallery houses numerous Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance works mainly coming from various churches in the city.
The painting gallery has a large collection of fourteenth-century altarpieces, detached frescoes and some masterpieces of International Gothic style as the famous Madonna della Quaglia by Pisanello and the Madonna del Roseto by Stefano da Verona. There is also a very rich section of sixteenth-century paintings with works by Girolamo dai Libri, Mantegna and some early works by Paolo Veronese.
A small section of Lombard and 14th century and Renaissance weapons and armors, including the sword of Cangrande, and some precious 14th century jewels, perhaps belonging to the della Scala family.
The restoration and setting up of Castevecchio, carried out by Carlo Scarpa since the 1950s, can also be considered a true work of art. Still today Castelvecchio is considered one of his most important works, studied and source of inspiration for many architects who come to Verona from all over the world for this purpose.
Archaeological Museum - Roman Theater
The Archaeological Museum of Verona is housed in the old convent of the Gesuati of San Girolamo built on the hill of San Pietro, overlooking the Roman Theater, which can be accessed with the same entrance ticket. The convent, deconsecrated, became a museum in 1923, when the archaeological collections and finds from the river Adige or extracted during excavations in the city were transferred there. During the recovery of the Roman theater, buried by the construction of various buildings in the Middle Ages, emerged numerous sculptures and decorations now on display in the rooms of the convent that houses the Archaeological Museum, along with pieces of mosaics with black, white and colored tiles, funerary stones, pieces of altars, epigraphs, etc.The archaeological museum has recently been restored and expanded, the exhibition rationalized and divided into thematic sections.
Also in this case, in addition to the collections, the exhibition site, very varied and articulated, offers considerable added value to the visit. From the top of the hill on which the museum is located you can enjoy unique and breathtaking views of Verona, even from the panoramic terrace where the most monumental finds are exposed.
The archaeological museum is a useful in-depth study of the itinerary in Roman Verona, especially for school groups on a school trip, as it offers many didactic ideas.
Maffeian Epigraphy Museum
Founded in 1745 in the courtyard of the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, characterized by its imposing pronao with giant columns, it is the oldest European museum after the Capitoline Museums, thanks to Scipione Maffei, who strongly wanted this museum and worked hard to achieve it. The Maffeian Lapidary Museum was created around the collection of ancient inscriptions, mainly Greek and Roman, collected by Scipione Maffei, a man of letters and an animator of Veronese cultural life in the mid-eighteenth century. In addition to the collection of inscriptions and funerary stones from the outer courtyard, the upper rooms contain Etruscan urns, Greek inscriptions and finely decorated sarcophagi.Modern Art Gallery
Palazzo Forti is the gallery of modern and contemporary art in Verona. The gallery is located inside an ancient palace from twelfth century in the heart of Verona, which was the court of law. The exhibition includes the collections of Achille Forti, a great collector of modern art, who the paintings he accumulated throughout his life to the city of Verona.In addition to the now great classics of modern Veronese painting such as Dall'Oca Bianca, Guido Trentini, Felice Casorati, there are sculptures, paintings, installations by contemporary Italian and international artists. In addition to the permanent exhibition Palazzo Forti organizes a rich activity of temporary exhibitions, educational activities, various events.
Scaligeri Excavations Museum
The archaeological investigations in the Mercato Vecchio Courtyard conducted from 1981 to 1985 brought to light such a quantity of finds that it was decided to create a sort of underground museum to make them visible in the original place where they were found. The underground spaces today are actually home to the exhibitions of the International Centre of Photography, which regularly holds photographic exhibitions there. The rooms, however, wind through mosaics of Roman pavement of the first and second centuries AD, perimeter walls and remains of early medieval apses, tombs from the Lombard era. There is also a long stretch of Roman pavement complete with brick sewer perfectly preserved. A visit to the Scaligeri Excavations is a fascinating journey through two thousand years of Verona history, and can become a valid addition to an educational itinerary or an itinerary in Roman Verona.Natural History Museum
An elegant Renaissance palace designed by the famous Renaissance
architect Michele Sanmicheli is home to the Museum of Natural
Sciences of Verona, one of the most interesting of its kind in
Europe. The permanent exhibition on display covers an area of
1,572 square meters and includes collections divided into 50%
Zoology, 20% Botany, Geology, Palaeontology and Prehistory 15%
.The Museum of Natural Sciences in Verona is famous for its
collections of fossils from Bolca, as well as
the pile-dwelling finds of Lake Garda. The
museum's library is also very well-stocked, with thousands of
books, extracts and specialist journals, and over the years has
carried out an important activity of reorganising the collections
to improve the museum's experience.