Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo

The Miniscalchi-Erizzo Museum occupies a fifteenth-century palazzo that remained a family residence until 1977. Its rooms preserve several centuries of collecting, from Renaissance bronzes and arms to Russian icons, paintings, furnishings and a reconstructed seventeenth-century cabinet of curiosities.

Why it matters

The collections grew through inheritance and marriage across the Miniscalchi, Moscardo, Erizzo and Pullè families. Their oldest collecting core came from Ludovico Moscardo (1611–1681), a Veronese scholar and collector whose domestic museum has been reconstructed as a Wunderkammer. In 1785, the marriage of Marcantonio Miniscalchi and Teresa Moscardo brought the Moscardo collections into the family. The museum was established through the generosity of Count Mario, whose founding statute committed the institution to the study and enjoyment of the public.

What to notice

The grand atrium retains evidence of the palazzo’s original fifteenth-century layout. A neoclassical staircase, painted with panels and flanked by two suits of armour, leads to fifteen rooms on the piano nobile. The collections include Renaissance bronzes and plaquettes, archaeological material, arms and armour from the mid-fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, paintings, sacred art, Russian icons, Venetian furnishings and ivories. The dining room is arranged with French porcelain of the Napoleonic era. The antique library and the reconstructed Moscardo Wunderkammer reflect the family’s scholarship and collecting practices.

Context and history

The Miniscalchi family lived in the palazzo for five centuries, until 1977, when the museum project took over its state rooms. The building preserves the character of a family residence rather than a purpose-built gallery. Its collections reflect successive family alliances and inheritances, with holdings from the Moscardo, Erizzo and Pullè families joining the original Miniscalchi collection. The Foundation Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo preserves the house and its historic archive, while later acquisitions have continued to expand the art collection.