City Museums and Exhibitions

Source: https://www.unipd.it/en/city-museums-exhibition Parent: https://www.unipd.it/en/welcome-padova

City Museums and Exhibitions

Antonian Museum

Re-opened in 1995, this museum offers a huge array of treasures, to see such as paintings, sculptures, plaster works, sacred paraments, tapestries and goldwork collections.

Piazza del Santo 11\ t 049.8603236\ https://www.santantonio.org/it/basilica

Cappella degli Scrovegni and the Eremitani

Giotto’s decorations for the world famous Scrovegni Chapel were commissioned in 1303 by Enrico Scrovegni to save the soul of his father, a wealthy money-lender. The frescoes, depicting episodes from the life of Christ, were completed in 1305.\ According to experts, Giotto’s work represents the birth of modern painting and culture. For the first time in history, the characters are removed from the canons of Byzantine and medieval art and acquire their own unique features.\ Particularly worthy of note are the colours, especially the wonderful lapis lazuli blue, used to represent the sky.

Outside is the Roman Arena, still used as an open-air cinema in the summer, and nearby are the Eremitani City Museums with their collections, which include works by Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Canova, Tiepolo, and many others.

Near the Museum stands the Eremitani Church, substantially rebuilt after its almost complete destruction by an Allied bomb in 1944. In the Ovetari Chapel is one of the first frescoed masterpieces by Andrea Mantegna, who originally came from Padova. What little remains of his beautiful work is the result of long and meticulous restoration, carried out by generations of experts using the most modern techniques.

CAPPELLA DEGLI SCROVEGNI\ Bookings required: t 049.2010020\ Entrance from Eremitani City Museums\ Opening times 9 am – 7 pm\ www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it

EREMITANI MUSEUM\ Piazza Eremitani 8\ t 049.8204551\ Opening times 9 am – 7 pm\ Closed on Mondays

Diocesan Museum

This museum contains sacred paintings, sculptures, religious furnishings, etc., and also hosts temporary exhibition.

Palazzo Vescovile (Bishop’s Palace)\ Piazza Duomo 12\ t 049.8761924\ info@museodiocesanopadova.it\ www.museodiocesanopadova.it

Esapolis - Museum of insects

A living museum housing insects and spiders.

Via dei Colli 28\ t 049.8910189\ info@butterflyarc.it\ www.esapolis.it

Museum of Applied and Decorative Arts and Bottacin Museum - Palazzo Zuckermann

From ancient ceramics to 19th-century furniture, china/porcelain, silver, clothing, and fashion accessories. The Bottacin collection celebrates the history of money, from ancient coins to the first cheques and banknotes, and then to today’s money.

Palazzo Zuckermann\ Corso Garibaldi 33\ t 049.8205664\ http://padovacultura.padovanet.it

Museum of Pre-Cinema - Minici Zotti Collection

This museum tells the history of illuminated, coloured, animated images and “magic lanterns”, before the invention of the true cinema.

Palazzo Angeli - Prato della Valle 1\ t 049.8763838\ info@minicizotti.it\ www.minicizotti.it

Museum of the Risorgimento and the Contemporary Age

This museum recounts 150 years of Paduan and Italian history, from the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797 to the Proclamation of the Italian Constitution in 1948.

Piano Nobile del Caffè Pedrocchi\ Galleria Pedrocchi 11\ t 049.8781231

Museum of the Third Arrmy

Photographs, documents and maps regarding World War I military operations, mostly involving the Carso and\ river Piave in north-east Italy, are on display here.

Palazzo Camerini\ Via Altinate 59\ t 049.8203430

Palazzo della Ragione

Construction of this enormous building - the Palace of Reason, or simply Il Salone (Great Hall) - was begun in 1218. Originally conceived as the civic and economic centre of the city, its upper floor was used as a court of law until the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797.\ Almost 100 years after it was built, the three rooms of the upper floor were transformed into a single great hall with a unique keel-shaped roof. The walls were decorated by Giotto with a highly detailed and colourful astrological cycle in three bands of frescoes. At one end stands an immense wooden horse, said to be the model for Donatello’s statue of the condottiere Gattamelata (now outside the Basilica of St. Anthony).\ Over the centuries, the magnificent Salone has been damaged by several fires and even a hurricane, but always lovingly restored. Its outer medieval porticoes on both sides of the ground floor now house shops selling all kinds of meat, cheese, fish, and other foodstuffs.\ It is now used for exhibitions and events.

Entrance from “Scala delle Erbe”\ Piazza delle Erbe; disabled entrance in\ Palazzo Moroni, Via del Municipio 1\ t 049.8205006\ Winter opening times 9 am – 6 pm\ Summer opening times 9 am – 7 pm\ closed on Monday

Palazzo Zabarella

Exhibition space devoted to temporary events.

Via San Francesco 27\ t 049.8753100\ info@palazzozabarella.it\ www.palazzozabarella.it

Planetarium

A three-dimensional representation of cosmic space, reproducing the causes and motions of celestial phenomena.

Via Cornaro 1/B\ t 049.773677\ info@planetariopadova.it\ www.planetariopadova.it

San Gaetano Cultural Centre

Once the ancient Law Courts, San Gaetano is now a new cultural centre for exhibitions and events. It also houses the City Library (Biblioteca Civica).

Via Altinate 71\ t 049.8205572\ centroculturalealtinate@comune.padova.it

St. Anthony's Museum

This space is devoted to temporary exhibitions.

Piazza del Santo 12\ t 049.8751105