The Civic Museums of Piacenza are hosted in Palazzo Farnese, once home of the Dukes.
The Museums include different collection: Armory, Sculpture, Frescoes, Carriages, Archaeological Museum, Art Gallery, Ceramic, Risorgimento.
The first project to display inside of the huge museum of Palazzo Farnese, the collections of the city gouvernement’s property, was proposed by Dionigi Barattieri in 1909. The idea was picked up in 1926 and picked up only in 1965 according with the angency for the renovation of the farnese’s building.
But only in 1988 the first room was opening to the public of the Civic Museum. During the autumn in 1997 the restauration of the entire spaces and artpieces were completed and finally, the opening of the Art Gallery took place.
The collections
The civic collections and the art gallery
Civic Museum: glass and majolic collection are displayed. The wall paintings from XIII and XIV Centuries coming from many churches, precious sculptures from XII and XIII Centuries; around 400 pieces of the ancient weapons collection, many paintings portraying Alessandro Farnese( by G.E. Draghi) and the pope Paul III Farnese( by S. Ricci).
Art Gallery: it’s placed on the first floor of the building where The Fasti Farnesiani have the right importance. These paintings celebrate the Ilario Spolverini’s dinasty.
The masterpiece is represented by the “Botticelli’s Tondo“, known also as “The Madonna adoring Jesus with San Giovannino”( 1483-87).
An area at the Noble Floor is dedicated to Rizzi collection.
Private art collection bequeathed to the Civic Museums in Palazzo Farnese, a treasure that adds to the already rich collection of the museums.
Mariapia and Augusto Rizzi donated to the city a precious collection of 17 paintings and three sculptures from the Late-Gothic art from Tuscany, which once belonged to their parents, Paola Vaccari and Luigi Rizzi.
The collection had been formed between the 1950s and the 1960s, gathering masterpieces from the art of the 14th and the 15th centuries, and from the beginning of the 17th century.
Carriages Collection
In the underground rooms of Palazzo Farnese, the great collection of coaches is fully gathered together and shown to the public. It was donated to Piacenza’s gouvernement in 1948 from the Count Silvestro Brondelli from Brondello, successor of the Count Dionigi Barattieri, who menaged to collect all the coaches during the first 30 years of the XX Century.
Actually for the quality of the pieces and for their good conditions, which allowed not making any particular restauration on them, The Carriages Museum is well known and appreciated not only in Italy but even by international researchers and lovers from all over Europe.
Four Berline to travel from XIX Century and two Berline for gala events from XVIII Century are belonging to the barattieri’s collection. One of the two Berline for Gala’s events is one of the oldest piece of the entire collection, it has an unbeliveble historicl value, it is marked on the back with F. Loyer- Turin. Even the most popular Landau appears in the museum, with two pieces, respectively market Ferretti-Roma (1880-90) and Cesare Sala-Milano (1890). Very rare is the Hansom-cab(1875-80), vehicle model esclusively british production. It ‘s very rare one, cause in the Italian collections they are counted only less then ten pieces.
Other vehicles displayed are: one Brougham-Clarence(1880-90), one Calèche(1828-30), one Vittoria(1869), one Vis-à-Vis (1860-80), one Stanhope-Gig(1870-80), one Dog-cart(1880-90), one Brake(1870-80), one Sulky(end of XVIII Century), one Spyder(1840-60), one mail-Phaeton(1901).
Inside of the Musem some special vehicles are displayed like Firefighters, Funeral home and a ladder weagon.
Archeological Museum
Since June 2021, the archeological museum was further enhanced by the Roman section.
The first rooms on the groundfloor are about the collectors and some givers’stories, who collaborated to the creation of the current museum. The rooms show the oldest part of the collection, divided in two different sides: the prehistory and the protohistory.
The most recent side of the museum is displayed in the underground floor of the ancient Cittadella Viscontea. Fivetheen rooms bring together different topics, explaining the history of Piacenza, starting from the pre-roman culture.
After a general cronological explanation and some information releated to the archeological research’s method, the masterpiece of this collection is reached: The Etruscan Liver. To it, it’s dedicated an entire room.
The exibithion continues with the urbis’s shape of the streets and the trades.
Crossing the corridor it’s possible to visit a huge room where many floorcoverings are shown. The path continues with other topics: the housing building and the daily life, the rituals and the religious buildings, funeral monuments and the necropolis, the end of the roman empire and the step into the early Middle Age.
Ceramic Collection
The collection was opened to the public in November 2019, it includes majolica and porcelains hightquality pieces, made by Italian and foreign manufacturers between the XVI and the XIX century.
The artifacts provide many different pieces, proofs of the history and wonderful examples of the handcraft glass techniques from Murano between the XVI and the XVIII Century, which represents the highest quality time for the Murano craftmanship.
The glass collection mainly includes the donation of Pietro Agnelli (1885) from Piacenza. He had managed to collect many magnificent objects from the venetian glass workshops during his career as President of the Appeals Court in Venice.
The section starts with gold decorations from the set of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese.
Museum of Risorgimento
Located in Palazzo Farnese south wing mezzanine, the Risorgimento Museum was inaugurated in 1988.
Most of the collection derives from the collection of antiques belonging to count Dionigi Barattieri since the beginning of the 20th century. But the public display of such materials (and their final exhibition in the palaces rooms) has been possibile since 1937 above all thanks to count Giuseppe Salvatore Manfredi, nephew of the patriot Giuseppe Manfredi.
The pieces exhibited regard mainly two important periods of Italian history: 1848-49 and 1859-61, with particular reference to Mazzini and Garibaldi. Such pieces range from publications to arms, documents, uniforms and various kinds of objects.
Junot General Decree (1806), among them, is very remarkable: it tells about Napoleon’s repression against those people enrolled in the French army.
There are also important documents concerning Piacenza timely plebiscitarian adhesion to the Kingdom of Sardinia, in 1848, act after which Piacenza was called Primogenita (first born child) by king Carlo Alberto.
