Museo Civico di Palazzo Silva

Behind a façade of marble-framed cross windows, Palazzo Silva preserves the material culture of a Renaissance noble family and nineteenth-century collectors. The old Della Silva residence houses Domodossola's civic collection of armour, firearms, swords and curiosities, alongside a courtyard gallery of stone sculpture.

Why it matters

Palazzo Silva is the historic-counterpart seat of Domodossola's civic museum network, the Musei Civici "G.G. Galletti", and the building itself is the collection's first exhibit. The house grew from a core dating to the late fourteenth century — its original door bore the date 1348, though that portal is no longer preserved — and was rebuilt by the noble Della Silva family in Renaissance form, its smooth facades articulated with cross windows carved in marble from the quarries of Crevoladossola. Eight marble coats of arms decorate the facade, announcing the family's rank to the street. The museum preserves an older style of collecting: a cabinet of arms, militaria and curiosities assembled after the town's benefactors acquired the palace in the 1880s. It is part of the civic museum network alongside Palazzo San Francesco.

What to notice

The cross-shaped marble window frames and eight coats of arms mark the Renaissance work of the Della Silva family; the stone came from Crevoladossola, a quarry district that supplied much of the Ossola's masonry. The collection includes Japanese armour and military headgear among European material. Firearms date from the late sixteenth to the twentieth century, and swords from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, including a Venetian blade from the early 1600s. Carved wooden bracelets shaped like boxing gloves reflect the collecting tastes of the nineteenth century. The marble courtyard, laid out as a gallery of stone sculpture, brings together the palace's medieval core, Renaissance refacing and civic afterlife.

Context and history

The palace's story runs from medieval house to noble residence to civic institution. Its origins lie in a building core of the late fourteenth century, documented by the door dated 1348; the Della Silva family, one of the great names of the Ossola whose arms still appear among those carved in Domodossola's porticoes, gave it its Renaissance face with the marble-cross facades. In 1882 the Fondazione Galletti, the charitable foundation of the town's great benefactor Gian Giacomo Galletti, purchased the palace, and two years later it acquired Palazzo San Francesco, creating the paired seats that still house the civic museums. The collections reflect both the family residence and the foundation-era taste for arms, armour and curiosities. The museum belongs to the Comune di Domodossola's Musei Civici G.G. Galletti network, alongside Palazzo San Francesco.