Pavia City Museums, Historical park museum at Visconti Castle, Pavia, Italy.
Pavia City Museums are housed in the Visconti Castle, built in 1360 by Galeazzo II Visconti, probably to a design by Bartolino da Novara. The ground-floor porticoes hold a lapidarium of Roman stelae, sarcophagi, altars and milestones, while the upper rooms display the archaeological collections, the Malaspina picture gallery and the Risorgimento museum.
This castle was built in the late 1300s as a seat of power for the ruling family of the region. Over time it transitioned from military use to become a repository for important collections that tell the area's story.
The Egyptian collection was bought by Marquis Luigi Malaspina di Sannazzaro from Giuseppe Nizzoli, Austrian consulate chancellor in Alexandria, between 1818 and 1828, and holds about 150 papyri, canopic jars, amulets and bronzes. Francesco Reale left Phoenician-Punic ceramics in 1892, a group rarely found in Italian museums outside Sardinia.
The site is best explored on foot and visitors can navigate through the rooms at their own pace. Good walking shoes are recommended since you will encounter stone floors and uneven surfaces throughout the castle.
The castle's original interior decoration was destroyed when it was turned into a barracks in the 16th century; traces of its former splendour survive only in documents. The ground-floor arcades instead hold a lapidarium of Roman stelae, sarcophagi, altars, capitals and milestones.
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