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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.
Opening hours
- Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: 10 am > 3 pm
- Friday: 2 pm > 6 pm
- Saturday, Sunday and Holidays: 10 am > 6.30 pm
The ticket office closes 30 minutes before the museum.
Museum Entrance Fees
Free admission
Services
bookshop | differently-abled access | cloackroom for individuals and groups | guided tours | education services for schools | workshops for families | library | photographic archive | hystorical archive
How to get here
From railway or bus station:
on foot > from Piazza Medaglie d’Oro follow Via Indipendenza to Piazza Maggiore, turn left into Via Rizzoli, at the Two Towers continue on Strada Maggiore to number 44 | approx. 2 km
by bus > lines 25, 27. Bus stop: first on Strada Maggiore
by car > underground parking area in Piazza VIII Agosto
Info
Museo Civico d’Arte Industriale e Galleria Davia Bargellini (Davia Bargellini Museum of Industrial Art and Gallery)
Strada Maggiore 44 | 40125 Bologna
tel. +39 051 236708
museiarteantica@comune.bologna.it
For educational services and guided tours: musarteanticascuole@comune.bologna.it
Palazzo Davia Bargellini
In 1920 under the guidance of Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri, the Bargellini Museum was opened in this 17th century building, one of the most beautiful senatorial palaces in Bologna. The building, commissioned in 1638 by Camillo Bargellini from the architect Bartolomeo Provaglia, was completed after 20 years. The façade is enriched by two large sculptures of sandstone Atlases that support the central balcony, made in 1658 by Gabriele Brunelli.
Also noteworthy is the majestic staircase with three buttresses leading to the main floor, decorated with stucco work by Giuseppe Barelli. It was added to the structure at a later time, around 1730, likely involving Carlo Francesco Dotti and Alfonso Torreggiani, the most popular architects in the city at that time. In the 19th Century the building was inherited by the Davia family. In 1874, the last member of the family, Giuseppe Davia Bargellini, instituted the charity of the same name, which still owns the building today.
The museum
Still today the seven exhibition halls largely reflect the original setup that the designer had given to the two distinct cores that make up the heritage of the museum: the Davia Bargellini gallery and the collection of applied arts. Malaguzzi Valeri intended to create the environment of an 18th Century furnished Bolognese apartment mixing elegant furnishings and rare items, like the scenic theatre for marionettes made in Venice in the 1700s, and the enchanting miniature reproduction of the inside of an 18th Century Emilian private residence, a kind of divertissement of cabinetry perhaps modelled on the more famous doll houses found in northern Europe, but very rare in Italy.
The gallery, with works like the Madonna of Teeth, a panel by Vitale da Bologna, the Pietà by Simone dei Crocefissi and the Madonna and Child by Cristoforo da Bologna, introduces the Bologna art scene that from the beginning of the 1300s and throughout the Century played an extremely important role. The late Gothic culture in Bologna is represented by works like the Saint John the Bastist by Jacopo di Paolo and the Evangelist by Michele di Matteo. Other interesting paintings bear witness to the city’s lively artistic events from the 15th to the 18th Century: significant are the works that illustrate the relationships between fathers and children within the family-run workshops (Prospero and Lavinia Fontana, Giuseppe Maria and Luigi Crespi).
To the patronage of the noble senatorial Bargellini family living in the edifice are owed some significant portraits of prominent members of the house, made by Bartolomeo Passerotti in the 1560s, perhaps at
the request of Vincenzo Maria, elected senator in 1566. A Century later this first series was followed by another with portraits of the family. And a final third series in the early 1700s was commissioned by Senator Vincenzo, consisting in 14 ovals depicting those who sat in the senatorial throne. In accordance with the precise instructions of the patron, the canvases were placed on the second floor of the building, creating a “gallery of the ancestors”.
During the same period the Bargellinis commissioned numerous paintings both sacred and secular to the “chaste” Marcantonio Franceschini. Between 1710 and 1711 the painter delivered the two ovals with Adonis and Venus, and the four canvases depicting Generosity, Charity and Child Bacchus and Cupid lying down.
There is an extensive collection of Bolognese sculpture from the 16th to 19th Century reflecting the prolific tradition of terracotta modelling. These include the powerful Bust sof Virgilio Bargellini by Vincenzo Onofri, the large polychrome terracotta sculpture with King David made by Angelo Gabriello Piò, the elegant statuettes and reliefs of Giuseppe Maria Mazza and Angelo Gabriello Piò, and the large group of Bolognese Nativity Figures from the 18th and 19th centuries.
The preminent core of the museum is the collection of objects of applied art, “curiosities of old Bologna” having various origins which came together to form a singular collection including numerous works in wrought iron, ornamental bronzes, keys, harnesses, handles and appliques for furniture, not to mention significant products of the decorative arts like glass (from the 16th to the 18th Century), the most important European porcelain manufacturers (Meissen, Ludwigsburg, Frankenthal, Höchst), waxes, including the well-known Portrait of a Prelate by Luigi Dardani, ceramics, stamped leather, embroidery.
At the centre of Room VI you can enjoy an elegant four-seat Gala Carriage from the late 1700s, wonderfully painted and gilded.