Casa di Cima

Behind Conegliano's cathedral stands the modest house where Renaissance painter Giovanni Battista Cima was born. Restored in the 1970s and run by the Fondazione G.B. Cima da Conegliano, it displays faithful reproductions of the artist's dispersed paintings together with archaeological finds unearthed in its own foundations.

Why it matters

Cima da Conegliano took his surname from this town, and this house on the street once called the Ruga inferiore is the place most closely tied to him. Scholars Emilio Botteon and Luigi Aliprandi identified the building through documents of 1516 and 1578, and patron Camillo Vazzoler funded a restoration completed in 1977 that returned the structure to its original lines. Since hardly any of Cima's panels remain in Conegliano itself, the house museum gathers carefully captioned reproductions of his significant works in the town that gave him his name. A bronze statue of Cima by the sculptor Grillos was inaugurated outside on 2 March 2024.

What to notice

The facade is deliberately plain, in keeping with the fifteenth-century lines the restoration recovered. Cima is said to have described his home as "parva sed apta mihi" — small, but suited to me. A large hall presents reproductions of Cima's paintings with concise captions, allowing comparison with compositions held in museums abroad. Restoration revealed painted dates on the walls, including "1492 adì 9 otubrio", written three days before Columbus reached America. Excavation of the foundations brought to light ceramics from the late Bronze Age, fourteenth to thirteenth century BC — storage jars, carinated cups and dolia — now shown in an archaeological display that pushed back ideas about how early this site was settled.

Context and history

The house stood abandoned for years before Vazzoler, nephew of the scholar Antonio Aliprandi, bought it from the Cremonesi family and commissioned restoration under the supervision of the Archaeological Superintendency of Padua. Work ran from 1975 to early 1977 and drew on specialists from the University of Padua for the ceramic finds; the house museum opened on Sunday 5 June 1977, blessed by Bishop Antonio Cunial. The building also houses the Fondazione Cima, which promotes conferences and studies on the painter, and supports an online project developed with ISIA di Urbino that applies imaging techniques such as virtual tours, RTI and VR to the artist's spaces and works.