Some Information for visiting the Archaeological Museum of Bologna

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Please note that the updated version of the website in English is under construction. We apologise for the inconvenience. In the meantime, we provide below the essential information for visiting the museum.

The Museum

The Archaeological Museum of Bologna is located in the city's former 15th-century Ospedale della Morte. Opened in September 1881 and part of the municipal museum network Settore Musei Civici Bologna, it houses one of the largest collections of antiquities in Italy. Its holdings comprise:

- a wealthy of documentation on the history of Bologna and its territory from pre-historic times to Roman period, the fruit of excavations starting in the second half of the 19th century;
- a substantial core collection, made up of the University collections of Aldrovandi, Cospi, Marsili, Lambertini and the fine collection of the Bolognese painter Pelagio Palagi. These collections comprise Egyptian, Prehistoric, Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities.

Visitors can follow two main itineraries: one for the History of Bologna (Lapidarium; Prehistoric section; Etruscan, Celtic, Roman Bologna, Verucchio) and one for the Collections (Egyptian, Greek, Etrusco-Italic, Roman, Plaster Cast Collection).

Please download the english leaflet of the Museum with map

Summer opening hours, until 3 November 2024

Daily (except non-holiday Tuesdays): from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Closed: Tuesday (if not a public holiday), 25 December, I May

Winter opening hours, from 4 November 2024

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday and public holidays: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Christmas holidays

Tuesday 24 December: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Wednesday 25 Decembre CLOSED
Thursday, 26 December: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Tuesday, 31 December: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Wednesday 1 January: 11 a.m. to to 7p.m.
Monday 6 January: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The ticket office closes one hour earlier

Museum Entrance Fees

Full rate: € 6
Reduced rate: € 4
Book your admission and buy your ticket online

What can I visit ...

in the basement?

Egyptian collection
First we find the limestone reliefs from the tomb of General Horemheb at Saqqara (reign of Tutankhamun, 1332-1323 BC): Horemheb would later be the last Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. A chronological itinerary takes us from the Predynastic to the Ptolemaic-Roman age, displaying vases, steles, bright-colored sarcophagi, a number of funerary statues (ushabti), votive bronze miniatures and other decorative objects. Of special interest is the royal statuary, with idealized portraits of the Pharaohs Neferhotep I, Thutmosis III, Amenhotep III or IV and Apries.

on the ground floor?

Lapidarium
The lobby and courtyard contain Roman funeral monuments and steles from the city of Bologna and its surroundings, dating from the middle of the 1st century BC to the mid-2nd century AD, and milestones from the Via Emilia. The sculptures include a torso with armor, part of a statue of the Emperor Nero (mid-1st century AD), found in the Roman theater of Bologna.

on the first floor?

Prehistoric collection
Artifacts testifying to the human presence in the area of Bologna from the lower Paleolithic (800,000 years ago) up to the dawn of history (Final Bronze Age, 10th century BC).

Etruscan Bologna
This is the start of the exhibits tracing the birth and development of Etruscan Bologna (from the 9th to the 4th century BC), with dwelling and productive artifacts from the earliest Villanovan phase villages (9th and 8th centuries BC) to the archaic and classical city, called Felsina (6th to 4th centuries BC). Le sale
The following rooms, relating to the Etruscan necropolis in Bologna, host numerous grave goods that retrace the historical, social and economic evolution of Etruscan Bologna. The earliest phase, so-called Villanovan phase (9th-8th centuries BC), is documented by cremation tombs with characteristic biconical ossuaries. The funeral steles decorated with fantastic animals belong to the following “Orientalising” phase (7th century BC). From the mid-6th century Felsina becomes a city, surrounded by its necropolises, with tombs marked by “horseshoe” shaped sandstone steles. The tombs contain fine Attic pottery and bronze vases, including the Certosa situla (early 6th century BC), a refined embossed laminate vessel used as a cinerary urn. The room dedicated to San Francesco hoard hosts the extraordinary discovery made in 1877 near the basilica of the same name: a large terracotta vase containing about 15 thousand metal objects, interpreted as a reserve of metal for new castings, hidden at the beginning of the 7th century BC.

Gallic Bologna
Etruscan Bologna was overrun in the early part of the 4th century BC by the invasion of the Boii, a Celtic tribe that settled in the area until the beginning of the 2nd century BC. The museum exhibits funeral objects from this phase, with iron weapons in the transalpine tradition.

Roman Bologna
After the defeat of the Celts at the start of the 2nd century, in 189 BC the Romans founded the colony of Bononia. The room displays objects that give visitors a good idea of the public and private lives of the ancient city’s inhabitants.

Verucchio
The visitors can compare the Etruscans of Bologna with those of Verucchio in Romagna, by admiring findings from necropolis excavations,including an exceptionally fine 7th-century wooden throne.

Prehistoric comparisons room
Materials from the collection of the geologist Giovanni Capellini, plus several smaller collections, including a donation from Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy.

Plaster cast collection
19th-century copies of famed Greek and Roman sculptures.

The Greek collection
Here we find the marble head of Athena Lemnia, an Augustan copy of the Greek bronze original by Phidias (5th century BC). The collection of pottery, mostly Attic, i.e. produced in Athens, dated from the late 6th to 5th century BC, but also crafted in Southern Italy in the late 5th and 4th century BC is particularly rich.

The Roman collection
It includes ceramic and glass vases, household decorations, bronze figurines, lamps and objects of daily use. The paleo-Christian diptychs and ivories, decorated with both sacred and profane motifs (5th century AD) are of great importance. The marble sculptures comprise reliefs, statues, public and private portraits. Noteworthy are a number of gold and silver coins ranging from the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD, part of a vast collection comprising 100,000 coins, medals and coin dies.

The Etrusco-Italic collection
Note the bucchero pottery from Chiusi, terracotta and alabaster Etruscan urns, relief and engraved mirrors, including the famous engraved mirror known as the “patera cospiana” (mid 4th century BC), from the name of Ferdinando Cospi, its first owner.

Services

Library

open-stack consultation room | reading room | specialized reference desk | reproduction and document delivery | free WiFi

How to get here

The museum is in the center of Bologna, just steps from Piazza Maggiore.
on foot> from railway or bus station, take Via Indipendenza to Piazza Maggiore, then turn left under the Portico del Pavaglione | approx. 1.5 km
by bus> take any line that stops near Piazza Maggiore
by car> the museum is in a restricted-traffic area. Exit from the Bologna ring road (Tangenziale) towards the city center. Pay parking: Piazza VIII Agosto and Staveco