Pinacoteca Provinciale di Salerno

The Provincial Picture Gallery of Salerno occupies rooms in Palazzo Pinto on Via dei Mercanti. Five chronological galleries present painting from the Renaissance to the post-war period, including works by Andrea Sabatini, Francesco Solimena and artists who worked on the Amalfi Coast between the wars.

Why it matters

The gallery began with the bequest of Baron Gennaro Pinto, who left the Province of Salerno the first floor of his palace and his painting collection. The holdings later grew through purchases, donations and bequests. The compact display offers a view of painting in Salerno and the surrounding province across several centuries.

What to notice

The first rooms include panels by Andrea Sabatini da Salerno and the Maestro dell'Incoronazione di Eboli. Seventeenth-century works include paintings by Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Andrea De Lioni and Carlo Rosa. The 18th-century room presents Francesco Solimena and his circle, including a work by Leonardo Antonio Olivieri. Later rooms feature painters from Salerno and the Amalfi Coast, including Tafuri, Avallone and Capone. A final section, begun with the 1999 purchase of works by Peter Willburger, contains more than fifty works by eleven artists, many of them German-speaking painters who lived on the Amalfi Coast between the wars.

Context and history

Palazzo Pinto preserves a structure dating to the 11th and 12th centuries, with Romanesque remains and a Catalan arch at ground level. Its present arrangement dates no later than the mid-17th century, with a covered loggia added above. The Pinto family acquired the palace in 1756. Gennaro Pinto, who died in 1910, bequeathed it to the Province. After the paintings were displayed in provincial offices and the palace was restored, the gallery opened in its present home in 2001.