Pinacoteca Civica di Ascoli Piceno

The Civic Art Gallery of Ascoli Piceno occupies rooms in the Palazzo dell'Arengo on Piazza Arringo. Established in 1861, its collection includes paintings and sculpture from the late Middle Ages through the modern period, displayed alongside historic furnishings.

Why it matters

The gallery was established on 4 August 1861, on the eve of the feast of Sant'Emidio. Its first works came from religious houses suppressed in the newly unified Italian state. Today it forms the historic core of the city's civic museum collections.

What to notice

The collection includes two fifteenth-century triptychs by Carlo Crivelli from Valle Castellana, Titian's Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, Cola dell'Amatrice's 1527 Ascent to Calvary and Guido Reni's Annunciation. Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo's Passeggiata amorosa, dated 1901, carries the collection into the modern period.

Among the notable objects is a thirteenth-century English cope, worked in opus anglicanum and donated to the cathedral by Pope Nicholas IV in 1288. It was stolen in 1902, reappeared in London and returned to Italy in 1907. Period furnishings, including mirrors and Murano chandeliers, preserve the atmosphere of the gallery's historic rooms.

Context and history

The painter Giorgio Paci and the younger artist Giulio Gabrielli helped assemble the first works from religious houses in Ascoli. The collection grew through later donations, including prints and drawings given by Gabrielli in 1909, paintings deposited by a Roman gallery in 1917 and a bequest of paintings, sculpture and ceramics from Antonio Ceci in 1920. The Pinacoteca is part of the Musei Civici, alongside the Galleria d'Arte Contemporanea Osvaldo Licini and the Museo dell'Arte Ceramica.