Piacenza Civic Museum, museum in Piacenza, Italy
The Musei civici di Palazzo Farnese occupy a large brick palace on Piazza Cittadella, built from 1558 for Duchess Margaret of Austria on the site of the Visconti citadel. The facade has three upper storeys of tall windows with white stone frames and curved pediments. Inside, a wide central courtyard is surrounded by four wings.
Palazzo Farnese was built centuries ago as a residence for local dukes and was later converted into a museum. The building preserves objects from different eras, from prehistory through Roman times to the Middle Ages and later the Risorgimento period.
The palace is named after the Farnese family, who made Piacenza a duchy in 1545 and whose commemorative works, the Fasti farnesiani, survive here only in part. The collections also include frescoes taken from churches of Piacenza and a collection of arms assembled in the early 19th century.
The museum occupies Palazzo Farnese on Piazza Cittadella, at the northern edge of the historic centre near the former Visconti citadel. The collections are spread across several sections of the palace, including the archaeological museum housed in the Visconti citadel, so allow time to move between rooms and floors.
The carriage collection was donated in 1948 by Silvestro Brondelli di Brondello, not assembled by the museum over time. It sits alongside the archaeological section, which holds the Etruscan Liver, a bronze model of a sheep's liver used for divination, kept in the Visconti citadel.
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