The Civic Museums of Pavia are a number of museums in Pavia, Lombardy, northern Italy. They are housed in the Castello Visconteo, or Visconti Castle, built in 1360 by Galeazzo II Visconti, soon after taking the city, a free city-state until then. The credited architect is Bartolino da Novara.
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The Visconti Castle of Pavia (Castello Visconteo di Pavia in Italian) is a medieval castle in Pavia, Lombardy, Northern Italy. It was built after 1360 in a few years by Galeazzo II Visconti, Lord of Milan, and used as a sovereign residence by him and his son Gian Galeazzo, first duke of Milan. Its wide dimensions induced Petrarch, who visited Pavia in the fall of 1365, to call it "an enormous palace in the citadel, a truly remarkable and costly structure". Adjacent to the castle, the Visconti created a vast walled park that reached the Certosa di Pavia, a Carthusian monastery founded in 1396 by the Visconti as well and located about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to the north.
In the 16th century, an artillery attack on Pavia destroyed a wing and two towers of the castle. The frescos that entirely decorated the castle rooms are today almost completely lost. The castle had been the seat of the Visconti Library until its transfer to Paris in 1499. Today, it hosts the Pavia...
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Visconti Castle is a nice place to go to spend maybe 2-3 hours in. Firstly the garden around the castle is very nice and serene (free to access), to enter the castle itself you need a ticket. The reason I gave this 4 stars is that the ticket is €10 per person which is not at all reasonable, and adding to that there is no discount for students (at least that’s what the lady said when we asked).
The castle is a museum as well with nice and interesting pieces of history, including some ancient Egyptian artifacts (which caught me by surprise). The architecture of the castle itself is beautiful, it apparently has 4 floors but we could only access the ground and first floor (which has nothing but locked doors). On the ground floor you can enter the “museum” part of the castle. All in all a nice place to visit, but it felt kind of dead and boring sometimes. And I would not come here again simply because of the unreasonable price, only suitable for a...
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This museum is obviously underfunded: an entire floor was closed, the main courtyard was unmaintained and overgrown, the galleries were poorly lit and not air-conditioned. The result was that almost nobody was there. To be fair, the building is a 600 year old ex-castle that has to cost a fortune to maintain.
Staff was pleasant and helpful.
The quality of the collection is typical for an Italian City of this size and note. It makes for a solid LOCAL resource that if properly maintain would make the local population proud. That said, there is nothing here that should tempt the typical INTERNATIONAL traveler to allocate precious time for a visit.
In and out in 75 minutes (with an entire floor closed). Not worth the 8 Euro fee (but feeling ok supporting a badly underfunded...
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