The Civic Museums of Pavia () are a number of museums in Pavia, Lombardy, northern Italy. They are housed in the Visconti Castle (Castello Visconteo), built in 1360 by Galeazzo II Visconti, soon after taking the city, a free city-state until then. The credited architect is Bartolino da Novara. The castle used to be the main residence of the Visconti family, while the political capital of the state was Milan. North of the castle a wide park was enclosed, also including the Certosa of Pavia, founded 1396 according to a vow of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, meant to be a sort of private chapel of the Visconti dynasty. The Battle of Pavia (1525), climax of the Italian Wars, took place inside the castle park.
The Civic Museums of Pavia include the Pinacoteca Malaspina, Museo Archeologico and Sala Longobarda, Sezioni Medioevale e Rinascimentale Quadreria dell’800 (Collezione Morone), Museo del Risorgimento, Museo Robecchi Bricchetti, and the Cripta di Sant’Eusebio.Official site for Musei Civici.
History The museum was built by the will of the Marquis Luigi Malaspina di Sannazzaro, an enlightened artist (1754/1835), who donated his art collections to the municipality on his death. The collection, which over time was enriched by numerous donations, was initially housed in the Malaspina Palace and was moved to the castle only in 1951.
Collections The archaeological collection includes materials found by chance during agricultural or building works; the museum has come mainly from private collecting (Giuletti, Reale collection, etc.). The arcades on the ground floor of the castle house the Lapidarium made up of stelae, sarcophagi, funerary and votive altars, epigraphs, capitals, colonnems and Roman milestones. Among the locally sourced pieces, particular mention should be made of those made from Egyptian granite and Proconnesian marble, which were discovered in Corteolona (curtis Ollone), the site of the palace of the Lombard king Liutprand. They are part of a collection of artifacts brought from Rome, likely in 729, following Liutprand’s visit to Pope Gregory II. During this journey, the king had venerated the relics of Saint Anastasius and, upon his return, dedicated the church and monastery within the royal palace at Corteolona to the saint.
Along the south side of the portico, several sarcophagi from the Roman period are displayed, nearly all made of granite from the Alps. Each consists of two separate elements: the lid and the chest. In the Middle Ages, sarcophagi were often reused, both as everyday objects (such as basins, animal troughs, or containers) and for the burial of prominent individuals or saints. In such cases, the original Roman inscription was often removed, altered, or replaced with a more recent one.
Archaeological Museum and Longobard Room The first room is dedicated to the territory of Ticinum (this was the ancient name of Pavia) in Roman times and, among other finds, it exhibits a sepulchral area, made up of brick cremation tombs and a sepulchral stone, of the 1st century A.D. found in Casteggio. The room also houses the finds from the Celtic necropolis found in 1957 in Santa Cristina e Bissone, whose grave goods date back to the 2nd century B.C. they are characterized by the presence of stylistically traditional celtic objects combined with typically Roman products, such as black-glazed Ware. Not otherwise, the grave goods from the 1st century B.C. tomb found in Pavia it is at the same time Celtic (in the ceramics and brooches) and Roman (in the brick elements of the box and in the clay unguentarium). These are evidence of the progressive penetration of Roman culture into the Celtic Cisalpine world. Also from the same period dates back to a piece of great interest: a silver cup which on the rim bears an inscription formed by a Ligurian name followed by an indication of Roman weight measurements found near Zerbo in a group of "Gallo-Roman" tombs cremation and dated to the 2nd century B.C.
In the second room is exhibited the Egyptian collection, donated by the Marquis Malaspina di Sannazzaro (who bought it from Giuseppe Nizzoli, chancellor of the Austrian consulate in Alexandria between 1818 and 1828), consisting of about 150 artifacts. The Egyptian collection is not the only section of the museum containing materials not coming from the Pavia area: we only remember the collection of Phoenician-Punic ceramics (rarely found in Italian museums outside Sardinia) left by Francesco Reale in 1892 or the collection of Italiot and Greek vases that came to the museum through 19th-century Pavese collectors.
Also in the same room is the collection of Roman glass, probably the most important in northern Italy, in which there are pieces of the highest quality and rarity, such as the dark blue glass kantharos from Frascarolo and the cup of Ennion. the Roman glass in the museum stands out for its quality and typological variety. In the collection, ascribable in the majority of the pieces to the 1st and 2nd century AD, the most diverse processing techniques are testified
Next to the glass, there are some sculptures from the Roman age found in the city and in its territory, among which a Greek marble bust depicting Artemis Soteira of Cephisodotus the Elder, a Roman copy of the 1st-2nd century AD stands out. The III and IV rooms exhibit Roman remains found in Pavia: ceramics, bronzes, terra sigillata, fine table ceramics, other Roman glass and large architectural and sculptural finds, including the statue of a man with a toga, known as name of Muto from the hilt to the neck, dating back to the 1st-2nd century AD. and coming from the western gate of the city (Porta Marenga). Among the sculptures of the Roman age there is also a female portrait, in Greek marble representing a woman of mature age with deeply sunken eyes and hats gathered on the nape of the neck, evidence of the "cultured" sculpture of Pavia of the III century. Also from a sepulchral monument comes a marble stone with the image of Attis, dating back to the 1st century AD. There are Celtic finds from the La Tène period and glazed pottery from the 1st century AD, also in the shape of a bird.
Always linked to the events of Pavia and its territory is the Longobard Room, where paleochristian silverware is exhibited (including a liturgical spoon, a bowl and a chalice knot found between the presbytery and the side aisle of the basilica of San Michele Maggiore in 1968), late Roman and Ostrogothic jewellery (including some notable stirrup fibulae) and finds from the Lombard period (including a rare Lombard age bronze statue representing a warrior), evidence of the importance and splendor of Pavia, then the capital of the kingdom. There are many finds of great interest (including historical ones) preserved: the front of a sarcophagus from the 2nd century AD. it contains an epigraph commemorating the work of the Gothic king Atalaric at the amphitheater of Pavia between 528 and 529. At the same time there is also a funerary epigraph in marble and written in Greek by a Syriac family, coming from the church of San Giovanni in Borgo and some fragments of tiles bearing the bishop Crispinus II (521- 541) stamp, proof of the presence of kilns in the city even after the end of the Roman world.
In the room there is also the large marble tombstone, found in Villaregio in the nineteenth century, by the philosopher Severino Boethius (about 480 - 524 or 526), and the tombstones of King Cunipert, his daughter Cuniperga, Queen Ragintruda and Duke Audoald. Witnesses of Lombard sculpture at the time of King Liutprand are the well-known plutei of Theodota, which depict the tree of life between winged dragons and a chalice flanked by peacocks, and the fragment of pluteus with a lamb's head from the former Royal Palace of Corteolona, while always linked to the royal past of Pavia is the inscription of the sarcophagus of Queen Ada (wife of King Hugh of Italy, who died in 931 and buried in the church of San Gervasio and Protasio) and the sella plicatilis, a folding chair of Carolingian or Ottonian art in iron coated with silver and gilded copper, a rare specimen (very few European museums retain furnishings from that era and almost none of them reach the quality of the Pavia specimen) due to its technical complexity and refined decoration.
Romanesque and Renaissance section The artistic and architectural evolution of the city is represented in the rooms ranging from the 7th to the 14th, where Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance sculptural and architectural finds are preserved, in particular the Romanesque section is probably one of the largest in northern Italy. Many of them come from buildings destroyed during the nineteenth century, such as those from the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santo Stefano (from the twelfth century and demolished during the nineteenth century to make room for the Cathedral). In particular, the monumental portals of the two churches (room VIII and X), numerous capitals and a portion of the wall with white, green and blue glazed bricks from Santa Maria del Popolo (11th Century) are exhibited, among the oldest Italian (and European) examples of majolica.
Also from Santa Maria del Popolo also come some capitals (11th and 12th century) that reflect the decorations and the shape of the Corinthian capitals of the classical age and a capital represented and seven figures that hold the character in the center, while the last of the series respectively carry a cross and a knife.
The most important Romanesque sculptures are also kept in the tenth room: those from the church of San Giovanni in Borgo (also demolished in the nineteenth century to enlarge the garden of the Borromeo College), among which we remember a capital with dragons and telamon and a capital with dragons bitten by masks, the work of the so-called Master of Dragons, all dating back to the early decades of the 12th century.
Of particular interest are the numerous dishes on display, all important products from the Islamic and Byzantine East, which adorned the facades of churches and buildings (many are still found on the facades of Romanesque churches in Pavia, so much so that Pavia, after Pisa and Rome is the Italian city that retains the largest number). These were very expensive and valuable products and were made with techniques then unknown in the West.
Also of oriental origin are other contemporary finds, such as an 11th-century Islamic coffin in embossed foil (coming from Dagestan) from the church of San Teodoro. Along with the sculptural finds, some Romanesque mosaics (12th century) from the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo, Sant'Invenzio and Santa Maria delle Stuoie (the wheel of the months) are preserved in the 11th room. The mosaics of Santa Maria del Popolo were found in successive phases in the demolitions of 1854 and 1936. The floor mosaic of the central nave adapts the theme of a large wheel included within a frame bordered by ribbon, herringbone and, laterally, with geometric motifs. The struggle between Faith and Discord is depicted in the larger band, as indicated by the Latin captions that still mark the wolf and the crow. The mosaic of the right aisle instead depicts scenes of the martyrdom of Saint Eustace and is also notable for the iconographic rarity (the saint's passion is depicted in the capitals of the church of Vezelay in Burgundy, in the cloister of Monreale, but this one in Pavia would be the only mosaic example).