Civic Museums of Padua, Art museum and archaeological complex in Padua, Italy

The Civic Museums of Padua occupy the former convent of the Eremitani on Piazza Eremitani, restored and fitted out between 1969 and 1986 to a design by architects Franco Albini and Franca Helg. The cloisters hold the archaeological museum and the museum of medieval and modern art, while the nearby Palazzo Zuckermann houses the applied arts and Bottacin collections. The Scrovegni Chapel with Giotto's frescoes is attached to the complex.

The core of the collection is the library of the Lateran Canons of San Giovanni di Verdara, made public in 1784 after the convent was suppressed in 1783 and its art assigned to the city. After the Napoleonic suppression of religious houses, the name Museo was given in 1825 to Abbot Giuseppe Furlanetto's display of Venetic, Greek and Roman inscriptions in the logge del Palazzo della Ragione. In 1857 Emperor Franz Joseph, visiting Padua, granted the city paintings from suppressed religious corporations, which led to the Pinacoteca Civica.

The name "degli Eremitani" comes from the Augustinian friars who held the convent until its suppression; the museum opened in the restored cloisters in 1985 after a project by Franco Albini and Franca Helg. The Lapidario in the smaller cloister keeps architectural fragments from Padua and its territory, documenting the city from the Middle Ages to the fall of the Venetian Republic.

The complex is split between the former Eremitani convent on Piazza Eremitani and Palazzo Zuckermann across the square, so plan to cross between them. The archaeological and medieval-modern art museums sit in the restored cloisters; the applied arts and Bottacin collections are in the palazzo. The Scrovegni Chapel is adjoining and visited separately.

The collection shows how artistic forms developed in the Veneto region from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. A distinctive feature is how this artistic journey is presented within the historical structure of the former convent itself.