Museo Civico di Palazzo Chiericati (Pinacoteca civica)

Palladio designed Palazzo Chiericati in 1550 as a town residence for Girolamo Chiericati. Purchased unfinished by Vicenza in 1839, it opened as the city's pinacoteca in 1855 and now displays Venetian painting, drawings and applied arts.

Why it matters

The palace exemplifies Palladio's treatment of the urban residence: two projecting corner wings with open loggias turn its façade toward the piazza. Begun for Girolamo Chiericati and completed only at the end of the seventeenth century, it was bought by the Comune in 1839 in a state of disrepair. The civic art museum opened there on 18 August 1855. Its collections span six centuries of painting from the city and diocese, from late-medieval altarpieces to eighteenth-century views, and include a cabinet of drawings by Palladio and his circle.

What to notice

The façade's two orders of columns, projecting loggias and balustrade crowned with statuary reflect Palladio's 1550 design for a site opening onto the piazza. Ground-floor rooms contain sixteenth-century frescoes by Domenico Brusasorzi and Battista Zelotti, with stuccoes by Bartolomeo Ridolfi and grotesques by Eliodoro Forbicini. The piano nobile includes Battista del Moro's scenes from the Column of Trajan and seventeenth-century ceilings by Cristoforo Menarola and Bartolomeo Cittadella. The collections include works from the Porto Godi, Vicentini dal Giglio and Velo bequests, as well as thirty-three Palladio drawings from Gaetano Pinali. In the basement, opened in 2012, medieval Chiericati houses and the thirteenth-century vault of the Roggia del Collo are visible.

Context and history

The civic collection began in 1820 with paintings from the church of San Bartolomeo. Further bequests in the 1820s and 1830s expanded it before the city had a permanent museum building. After Vicenza purchased the palace, architects Berti and Miglioranza restored and enlarged it for museum use. Natural history and archaeological collections moved to the Chiostri di Santa Corona in 1991, leaving Palazzo Chiericati as the city's pinacoteca. Its Venetian collection includes works by Paolo Veneziano, Bartolomeo Montagna, Cima da Conegliano, the Bassano family and eighteenth-century painters; drawings by Palladio and his circle are also held there.