City Museums

The centrally located Piazza Eremitani contains the City Museums, the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Medieval and Modern Art, housed in the cloisters of the old monastery of the Eremitani monks. The Scrovegni Chapel also forms part of this complex of buildings.

The original nucleus of Padova's City Museums can still be recognised in the rich collections which became public property with the suppression of the Convento di San Giovanni da Verdara (1783) and other religious bodies (1810). In 1825, Abbot Giuseppe Furlanetto placed a collection of Venetic, Greek and Roman stone tablets in the loggias of the Palazzo della Ragione (also called Il Salone), which was inaugurated by Francis I of Austria with the name of Museum. Then, thanks to the passionate commitment of Andrea Gloria, these pieces became part of the city's collections of works of art, together with the contents of private libraries and the old archives of the city's Magistrature. They later became the Pinacoteca (Art Gallery), Biblioteca (Library) and Archivio (Archive), the latter passing to the Italian State in 1948.

The Biblioteca Civica (City Library) contains more than 500,000 manuscripts and printed volumes, from private libraries formerly belonging to Paduan families and collectors.

Info:
City Museums, Piazza Eremitani 8
tel. +39 049 8204551
fax +39 049 8204585
Open all year: 09:00 - 19:00
Closed: Mondays (unless public holidays), January 1, May 1, December 25 and 26.
The Scrovegni Chapel is open, even on Mondays.
for tickets click here

To reach Palazzo Zuckermann, City Museums and Scrovegni Chapel:
from train station: buses 3, 10, 12; Sundays and holidays: buses 32, 42.
by car and coach: motorway exit Padova Est, parking at Fiera (Fair): shuttle bus service from Via Tommaseo to centre of city; or motorway exits Padova Sud and Padova Ovest, parking in Prato della Valle, with shuttle bus service to centre of town, Via Valeri (off Via Trieste), Piazza Insurrezione.