Museo Archeologico di Novara

The Archaeological Museum of Novara occupies vaulted rooms beneath the city's Visconti-Sforza castle. Its collections trace the territory's prehistory, Roman settlement and early medieval period.

Why it matters

The museum brings together archaeology, numismatics and glyptics, with material that documents the communities of the Novarese before and during Romanisation. The castle setting places the area's ancient history beneath a building that represents later layers of the city's military and political past.

What to notice

The protohistoric collection includes storage and cooking vessels, cinerary urns and bronze objects such as fibulae, pendants, bracelets and belt fittings. Roman displays include glassware and domestic objects. The vaulted brick rooms of the castle basement frame the collections within the medieval and early modern fortress.

Context and history

Novara's archaeological collections grew from local scholarship and civic collecting. The museum is housed in the Castello Visconteo-Sforzesco, which developed from Visconti and Sforza foundations and later served as a Spanish-era fortress. After a long closure during changes to the castle, the archaeological museum reopened in its basement spaces as part of Novara's civic museum network.