Palazzo del Fumetto (PAFF!)

Palazzo del Fumetto occupies Villa Galvani in Pordenone's Parco Galvani and is dedicated to the history and art of comics. Its permanent International Museum of Comic Art presents sequential storytelling through original works, publications and objects.

Why it matters

The museum grew from PAFF!, the Palazzo dell'Arte del Fumetto del Friuli, which opened in Villa Galvani in 2018. The permanent International Museum of Comic Art was established in 2023, and the institution adopted the name Palazzo del Fumetto in 2024. Its collection includes more than 200 original plates and roughly 1,500 publications and objects.

What to notice

The permanent exhibition is arranged in twenty sections, tracing comics from late-nineteenth-century newspaper pages to contemporary graphic novels, manga and bande dessinée. The collection includes original work by E. C. Segar, Chester Gould, Don Rosa, Andrea Pazienza and Marjane Satrapi, as well as an original Peanuts strip by Charles M. Schulz. Characters represented range from Tex, Diabolik and Corto Maltese to Spider-Man, Batman, Dragon Ball, Naruto and One Piece. The museum occupies Villa Galvani, set beside a spring-fed lake in the park.

Context and history

The Galvani family, associated with Pordenone's paper, silk and ceramics businesses, owned the villa and park until 1970, when the complex passed to the Comune. The restored villa opened as an exhibition venue in 1990, and two adjoining exhibition buildings were added in 2010. The comic-art project emerged from an association founded by eight young artists in 2003; conceived in 2013, it took shape at Villa Galvani in 2018. The museum shares the park's cultural setting with the Galleria Armando Pizzinato.