Byzantine Museum of Antivouniotissa, Art museum in Corfu Old Town, Greece.
The Byzantine Museum of Antivouniotissa is housed in a 15th-century church with stone floors, arched doorways, and a covered walkway running along three sides of the interior. The collection displays around ninety hand-painted icons spanning five centuries, showing different artistic styles and religious imagery from the Ionian region.
The church, probably built at the end of the 15th century, is one of Corfu's oldest religious monuments. In 1979 the founding families Mylonopoulos, Alamanos, Rizikaris and Skarpas donated it to the Greek state on condition it become a museum. After urgent structural restoration, Culture Minister Melina Merkouri inaugurated the museum in 1984; a second restoration phase ended in June 1994 with the reopening of the display.
The name Antivouniotissa means "facing the mountain", referring to the hill the church looks toward. The narthexes now hold the icons, while the nave and sanctuary keep their liturgical layout, with pews and painted "wall-paper" reconstructed from archive photographs. The feast of the Virgin is still celebrated here.
The museum sits in the Old Town and is easy to reach on foot; parking is limited and located a short walk away. Take your time looking at the icons, as the covered walkway creates smaller viewing spaces and it can get crowded during peak hours.
The stone paving slabs in the nave and exonarthexes are mostly tombstones with incised or relief names and coats of arms of Corfiote noblemen, leading clerics (protopapases) and other distinguished islanders buried here. They tie the church directly to the island's history.
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