Description
The Musei Civici agli Eremitani are Padua's great museum, housed in the cloisters of the old convent of the Eremitani friars, on Piazza Eremitani. Under one roof are an archaeological museum and a picture gallery with about three thousand paintings, and the Scrovegni Chapel belongs to the complex too.
The most precious piece is Giotto's Crucifix, a large cross painted on panel, more than two metres tall, which in the early 14th century hung in the middle of the Scrovegni Chapel.
Christ is thin and elongated, the body sagging downwards, with veins and ribs painted one by one. The cross is painted on both sides: on the back, more worn, appears the Mystic Lamb.
Alongside Giotto, the picture gallery spans six centuries of painting, from the 14th to the 19th century. There are Guariento's panels, among them the Angels that adorned the chapel of the Carrara palace, and then two canvases by Titian, the Birth of Adonis and the Forest of Polydorus, Veronese, Tintoretto and Tiepolo.
The Archaeological Museum tells the story of ancient Padua: stelae, decorated vases and votive objects of the ancient Veneti, from the 8th to the 3rd century BC. In the Roman section the monumental funerary aedicula of the Volumnii stands out, together with the bust of Silenus and many late Roman mosaics.
Two rooms are given over to Egypt, with finds recovered by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, the Paduan explorer who lived from 1778 to 1823. In the smaller cloister, the Lapidarium gathers fragments of carved stone that tell the city's story from the Middle Ages to the fall of the Republic of Venice.
The museum has old roots. Its first core is the collection of the canons of San Giovanni di Verdara, which passed to the city when their convent was suppressed, in 1783, and opened to the public the following year.
The building has a history too. The Eremitani cloisters were restored between 1969 and 1986 by the architects Franco Albini and Franca Helg, and the museum moved in in 1985.
The Musei Civici also include the nearby Palazzo Zuckermann, with the applied arts and the coins of the Bottacin Museum, and the Museum of the Risorgimento at Caffè Pedrocchi.
Don't miss
• Giotto's Crucifix.
• Guariento's Angels.
• Funerary aedicula of the Volumnii.
• Egyptian rooms.
Did you know?
The picture gallery was born in 1857, when Emperor Franz Joseph, visiting Padua, gave the city the paintings from the suppressed convents.
Among the Roman finds is the funerary cippus of a dancer, Claudia Toreuma.
The most precious piece is Giotto's Crucifix, a large cross painted on panel, more than two metres tall, which in the early 14th century hung in the middle of the Scrovegni Chapel.
Christ is thin and elongated, the body sagging downwards, with veins and ribs painted one by one. The cross is painted on both sides: on the back, more worn, appears the Mystic Lamb.
Alongside Giotto, the picture gallery spans six centuries of painting, from the 14th to the 19th century. There are Guariento's panels, among them the Angels that adorned the chapel of the Carrara palace, and then two canvases by Titian, the Birth of Adonis and the Forest of Polydorus, Veronese, Tintoretto and Tiepolo.
The Archaeological Museum tells the story of ancient Padua: stelae, decorated vases and votive objects of the ancient Veneti, from the 8th to the 3rd century BC. In the Roman section the monumental funerary aedicula of the Volumnii stands out, together with the bust of Silenus and many late Roman mosaics.
Two rooms are given over to Egypt, with finds recovered by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, the Paduan explorer who lived from 1778 to 1823. In the smaller cloister, the Lapidarium gathers fragments of carved stone that tell the city's story from the Middle Ages to the fall of the Republic of Venice.
The museum has old roots. Its first core is the collection of the canons of San Giovanni di Verdara, which passed to the city when their convent was suppressed, in 1783, and opened to the public the following year.
The building has a history too. The Eremitani cloisters were restored between 1969 and 1986 by the architects Franco Albini and Franca Helg, and the museum moved in in 1985.
The Musei Civici also include the nearby Palazzo Zuckermann, with the applied arts and the coins of the Bottacin Museum, and the Museum of the Risorgimento at Caffè Pedrocchi.
Don't miss
• Giotto's Crucifix.
• Guariento's Angels.
• Funerary aedicula of the Volumnii.
• Egyptian rooms.
Did you know?
The picture gallery was born in 1857, when Emperor Franz Joseph, visiting Padua, gave the city the paintings from the suppressed convents.
Among the Roman finds is the funerary cippus of a dancer, Claudia Toreuma.