Associated Partners

The Museo Nazionale Atestino tells the story of the life of the ancient Veneti (1st millennium BC) and their dynamic relationship with the Etruscan, Celtic and Roman worlds, as brought to light by excavations since 1876. The eleven rooms of the museum also display evidence of the Roman city of Ateste as well as prehistoric, bronze and iron age arteficats and medieval and later pieces of art from Este and the Euganean Hills.

The museum, which was founded in 1834 as a municipal museum and has been a state museum since 1887, is now part of the Direzione Regionale Musei del Veneto.

Rooms, furniture, paintings and artefacts still tell the story of the Miniscalchi family, an old noble family from Bergamo who settled in Verona in the early 15th century. The museum is located in the rooms of the former aristocratic residence, which was inhabited by the family until 1977, and is divided into sixteen rooms in which various collections are exhibited: Paintings, small bronzes from the Renaissance, archaeological collections, Russian icons, an antique library, weapons and armour from the 15th and 16th centuries, sacred art and a house chapel, the reconstructed ‘Wunderkammer’ of the 17th century Veronese scholar Ludovico Moscardo.

The Civic Museums of Verona (IMUV) include the following museums and monuments: the Arena Amphitheatre (known as the Arena of Verona), Juliet’s House, the Archaeological Museum in the Roman Theatre, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Frescoes “G. B. Cavalcaselle”, the Museum of Castelvecchio, the Maffeiano Lapidarium and the Gallery of Modern Art “Achille Forti”. The museums are open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm.

The institutional tasks of the municipal museums include the promotion and valorisation of the museum sites. The primary aim is to break down physical and cognitive barriers in order to ensure better use of the collections, also using advanced media technologies such as the existing platforms on the Internet.

The Civic Museums of Verona are online on Google Arts & Culture: about 200 works of the Achille Forti Gallery of Modern Art and 6 floors, about 200 paintings and sculptures of the Castelvecchio Museum, more than 600 works of the Maffeiano Lapidarium-Museum and 7 floors for thematic tours and in-depth studies are available.

Specifically, the two museums involved in the xFORMAL route are the Natural History Museum and the Museo Lapidario Maffeiano. The first houses prehistoric and protohistoric archaeological finds from the Veronese area as well as epigraphic material from the pre-Roman period of the regions’s history. The second houses one of the richest epigraphic collections in the world, including inscribed artefacts from the pre-Roman period.

The National Archaeological Museum of Verona is housed in the former Habsburg prison of San Tomaso and contains the extremely rich evidence of archaeological research carried out in the city and in the Veronese territory, covering a period ranging from prehistory to early history, the Celtic phase, Romanisation and the Roman Imperial period.

The building, a judicial and military prison, was erected by the Austrian administration when the political events following the Carbonari uprisings made it necessary to imprison a growing number of people. The complex, which adjoins the church of St Thomas Becket, consists of three bodies arranged around an inner courtyard and comprises three floors and an attic. The building is one of the best-preserved examples of Austrian civil architecture in the city.

The exhibition itinerary of the Prehistory and Protohistory Section tells the main historical components of the Veronese territory between 200,000 years ago and the 1st century BC, also thanks to physical and virtual reconstructions, videos and other multimedia media. The visit is divided into a series of subsections dedicated to the main periods of prehistory and protohistory of the Veronese area, from the Palaeolithic (represented by the famous painted stone, the so-called ‘shaman’, from the Grotta di Fumane) to the Neolithic and Copper Age, the Bronze Age, with the exhibition of materials from the UNESCO pile dwellings in the Veronese area, and the Iron Age.

The aim is to make visitors aware of the formative role of this area in relation to the urban centre of Verona, whose development is the result of a long historical evolution.

The exhibition develops unilaterally and without interventions, starting from the orientation room (accessible from the staircase and the lift), passing through the various rooms of the two arms of the third floor (from the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age) and ending in the third arm (dedicated to the Iron Age).

The Eremitani Museum is located in a 15th-century monastery complex that was remodelled according to a design by Franco Albini, a renowned rationalist architect. It stands next to the surviving part of the Roman amphitheatre between the Scrovegni Chapel and the Church of the Eremitani. The Archaeological Museum is located on the ground floor of the complex. It originates from the lapidary collection of Alessandro Maggi da Bassano, one of the most famous intellectuals of the 16th century. In the 19th century, the Paduan abbot Giuseppe Furlanetto had the Maggi collection moved from the ‘House of Mirrors’ to the external loggias of the Palazzo della Ragione. This created the first lapidary nucleus, which was ceremoniously inaugurated by Emperor Franz I of Austria in 1825. The oldest public archaeological collection in Padua dates from this period, to which material from donations and excavations in the city and surrounding area was later added. The materials are now housed in 19 rooms.

The first 10 document the continuity of life in Padua and the Paduan landscape from early history to Roman times. The exhibition begins with finds from the pre-Roman period from Padua’s necropolises, dating from the 8th to 3rd centuries BC, and continues with the section dedicated to the Via Annia, the great road built during the Romanisation period (2nd century BC) to connect north-eastern Italy with the rest of the peninsula’s road network. Here there is a multimedia station where some of the most important artefacts from Roman times are on display. The path then leads to the section specifically dedicated to Roman Padua and its landscape. The next 9 rooms are reserved for collection materials. Finally, the small cloister houses the lapidary collection from the Roman period, consisting of columns, entablatures, capitals, friezes and architectural elements from finds and excavations in the city centre. In 2023, the Hermitage Museum had 367,724 admissions.

The Naturalistic and Archaeological Museum of Vicenza researches, preserves and promotes the naturalistic and archaeological heritage, especially that of the region. The naturalistic section shows the environment of the Berici Hills, the hilly area south of Vicenza (SCI area – Site of Community Interest, part of the Natura 2000 network), with its fossils, animals and plants. The archaeology department exhibits artefacts from prehistory to the early Middle Ages, such as stone tools from the Palaeolithic period, Neolithic pottery, votive slabs and Venetian inscriptions from the Iron Age, Roman artefacts and rich Lombard artefacts.

In co-operation with universities, associations and cultural institutions, it carries out research activities on the collections and the area. It has a lively publishing activity and regularly publishes the scientific bulletin Natura Vicentina. It organises educational activities for schools and citizens, with a focus on accessibility and inclusion.

The Museo Civico di Montebelluna collects, preserves, studies and disseminates the tangible and intangible natural and archaeological heritage of the region. Since 1984, the museum has been housed in the 17th-century Villa Biagi, with a layout organised on the villa’s two floors: on the ground floor, the exhibition dedicated to the archaeology of the territory, organised chronologically from prehistory to the Roman period, with important finds from the protohistoric period of the Ancient Veneto and sculptures from the Roman period; on the first floor, the Natural Science section with rooms dedicated to astronomy, mineralogy, geology, invertebrates, chordates and vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals).

The Museum ensured for maximum accessibility of the collections and research through training and the involvement of citizens in citizen science and public archaeology projects, also in collaboration with local associations. The research and conservation tasks are accompanied by activities aimed at communicating and valorising the heritage, such as temporary exhibitions, events, visits and educational activities and other cultural initiatives for all target groups (schools, families, adults, young people, senior citizens, people with disabilities, special groups and associations).