Museum sights in Italy
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Museo Nazionale Ridola
The Museo Nazionale Ridola occupies the 17th-century convent of Santa Chiara. The impressive collection includes some remarkable Greek pottery, such as the Craterea Mascheroni, a huge urn over 1m high.
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Palazzo Poggi
At the university museums at Palazzo Poggi you can peruse waxwork uteri in the Obstetrics Museum and giant tortoise shells in the Museum of Natural Sciences. Further surprises are to be found in museums dedicated to ships and old maps, military architecture and physics.
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Civico Museo Archeologico
The Monastero Maggiore, a 9th-century Benedictine convent rebuilt in the 1500s, is a dramatic backdrop for the extensive collections of Roman, Greek and Etruscan artefacts housed in the Civico Museo Archeologico.
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Museo del Palazzo Venezia
The Palazzo Venezia houses the Museo del Palazzo Venezia, with its superb Byzantine and early Renaissance paintings and an eclectic collection of jewellery, tapestries, ceramics, bronze figurines, arms and armour.
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Museo Marino Marini
Influenced by ancient Etruscans as well as modernist peers, the bronzes of Marini fill the bright nave of a former church, into which architects have smuggled a mini–brutalist museum. Exhibitions of contemporary art are first-rate.
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Capitoline Museums
The world's oldest national museums were founded in 1471 when Pope Sixtus IV donated a few bronze sculptures to the city, forming the nucleus of what is now one of Italy's finest collections of classical art.
The entrance is in Palazzo dei Conservatori, where you'll find the original core of the sculptural collection on the 1st floor. On the 2nd floor is a masterpiece-packed art gallery.
Before you head upstairs, take a moment to admire the ancient masonry littered around the ground-floor courtyard, most notably a mammoth head, hand and foot. These all come from a 12m-high statue of Constantine that originally stood in the Basilica di Massenzio in the Roman Forum.
Of the…
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MADRE
At the time of research, the future of Naples' once-wonderful contemporary art museum was undecided. Its 'Historical Collection' of modern painting, photography, sculpture and installations from greats such as Mario Merz, Damien Hirst and Olafur Eliasson was closed indefinitely, with only its specially commissioned, 1st-floor installations on display. Inspired by Naples, these installations include works by Francesco Clemente, Anish Kapoor, Rebecca Horn, and Jeff Koons.
Check the museum website for updates.
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Museo della Vita e delle Tradizioni Sarde
The Museo della Vita e delle Tradizioni Sarde provides a fascinating insight into Sardinian traditions, folklores, superstitions and celebrations. Its pièce de résistance is the colourful display of traditional costumes.
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Macchine di Leonardo
Pop by here for a squiz at some grand-scale models of some of Leonardo da Vinci's more far-fetched ideas, silly things like flying machines, a bicycle, a glider, a tank and other objects that were, actually, centuries ahead of their time.
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Museo Correale
Located to the east of the city centre, this museum is well worth a visit whether you are a clock collector, an archaeological egghead or into embroidery. In addition to the rich assortment of 17th- to 19th-century Neapolitan art and crafts, there are Japanese, Chinese and European ceramics, clocks, furniture and, on the ground floor, Greek and Roman artefacts.
The bulk of the collection, along with the 18th-century villa home, was donated to the city in the 1920s by aristocratic counts Alfredo and Pompeo Correale. Do wander around the gardens with their breathtaking coastal views and rare plants and flowers.
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Museo Archeologico Provinciale
The province’s main archaeological museum has been closed for restoration for several years now with no approximate opening date available. Check at the tourist office before turning up here. If it is open, don’t miss the highlight: a 1st-century-BC bronze head of Apollo, discovered in the Gulf of Salerno in 1930. One can only wonder what else lies buried in the surrounding seabed.
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Museo dell'Automobile
For modern art with a metallic sheen, head for the Museo dell'Automobile. Among its 400 masterpieces are one of the first FIATs and the Isotta Franchini driven by Gloria Swanson in the film Sunset Boulevard. It's a rev-head's paradise.
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Cappella di San Severo
The Cappella di San Severo is decorated with Raphael’s Trinity with Saints (thought by many to be his first fresco) during the artist’s residence in Perugia (1505–08) and frescoes by his teacher Perugino, dating to 1521.
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Museo di Casa di Vasari
Built and sumptuously decorated (in many cases, overwhelmingly so) by Vasari (1511–74) himself, this is where the Arezzo-born painter, architect and art historian lived and where the original manuscript of his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550) – still in print under the title The Lives of the Artists – is kept.
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Museo Claudio Faina e Civico
This fantastic museum opposite the cathedral houses one of Italy's most important collection of Etruscan archaeological artefacts – including plenty of stone sarcophagi and terracotta pieces – as well as some significant Greek ceramic works.
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Museo Internazionale delle Marionette
On a jolly note, the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette houses over 3500 puppets, marionettes and glove puppets from Italy, China, India, southern Asia, Turkey and Africa. Delightful puppet shows are staged every Friday at 5.30pm.
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Museo delle Porcellane
Housed in the airy casino at the top of the Giardino di Boboli, this museum contains a varied collection of fine porcelain, including fine pieces from Sèvres, Meissen and Vincennes, collected down the ages by illustrious tenants of Palazzo Pitti.
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Museo Poldi-Pezzoli
Botticelli’s Madonna and Child is the star attraction at the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli. Home to Milan’s most important private collection, it also displays some superb porcelain, jewellery, tapestries, antique furniture and paintings.
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Museo del Risorgimento
Inside the Vittoriano, the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento, often referred to as the Complesso del Vittoriano, hosts temporary art exhibitions and a small collection of military knick-knacks documenting the history of Italian unification.
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Palazzo San Giorgio
Marco Polo was once an inmate of the frescoed Palazzo San Giorgio. Built in 1260, it became a prison in 1298; Polo worked on Il Milione here. These days it hosts occasional exhibitions; the city centre info kiosk has information.
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Museo della Cattedrale
The Museo della Cattedrale houses various artefacts from the cathedral, including a serene Madonna by Jacopo della Quercia, a couple of vigorous Cosimo Tura canvases, and some witty bas-reliefs illustrating the months of the year.
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Bisazza
The first and last name in modern mosaics has opened a Milan showroom where tiny tesserae get together and stage riots of colour and pattern, then mysteriously cohere into a fluttering kelp forest, or luminous jellyfish trailing tentacles like royal trains.
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Museo di Mina Palumbo
The other excellent sight in Castelbuono is the Museo di Mina Palumbo, named after the naturalist Francesco Minà Palumbo. His collection gives an exhaustive insight into the Madonie mountains, and their botany, natural history, minerals and archaeology.
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Museo Archeologico Nazionale
You’ll find Etruscan artefacts, along with an impressive selection of Attic vases, in Palazzo di Ludovico il Moro at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Many finds came from the Etruscan town of Spina, near modern-day Comacchio.
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Museo Regionale
The Museo Regionale houses works of art including the Virgin and Child with Saints by Antonello da Messina (born here in 1430) and two masterpieces by Caravaggio – L’Adorazione dei pastori and Resurrezione di Lazzaro.
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