1473 Best Sights in Italy

Overlooking the town, atop Mt. Tappeinerweg, is Castel Fontana, which was the home of poet Ezra Pound from 1958 to 1964. Still in the Pound family, the castle now houses the Museo Agricolo di Brunnenburg, devoted to Tyrolean country life. Among its exhibits are a smithy and a room with Pound memorabilia.

The Archaeological Museum in the Convento di San Bernardo, just outside the Anfiteatro Romano, exhibits a fine collection of Etruscan bronzes. The ticket allows admission to the Anfiteatro Romano.

Of the Etruscan, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman antiquities here, the Etruscan collection is particularly notable—one of the most important in Italy (the other being in Turin). The famous bronze Chimera was discovered without its tail, which is a 16th-century reconstruction by Cellini. If you're traveling with kids, they might particularly enjoy the small mummy collection. Those with a fondness for gardens should visit on Saturday morning, when the tiny but eminently pleasurable garden is open for tours. If you're going to the Uffizi, hang on to your ticket, as admission to this museum is free.

The 13th-century Palazzo Pretorio, on Piazza Garibaldi, is home to this fascinating museum with plenty of Etruscan artifacts. A number of displays reconstruct the nature of daily life for the Etruscans who once inhabited the hills in this area.

Trace the area's history here and learn about the importance of Cividale and Udine in the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire. The collection includes Roman mosaics and epigraphs as well as weapons and exquisite jewelry from 6th-century Lombard warriors, who swept through much of what is now Italy.

The archaeological holdings of this museum in a 15th-century former monastery consist largely of the donated collections of Veronese citizens proud of their city's classical past. You'll find few blockbusters here, but there are some noteworthy pieces (especially among the bronzes), and it is interesting to see what cultured Veronese collected between the 17th and 19th centuries. The museum complex includes the Teatro Romano, Verona's 1st-century theater, which is open to visitors and an atmospheric music venue.

A sense of Marsala's past as a Carthaginian stronghold is captured by the well-preserved Punic warship displayed in this museum, along with some of the amphorae and other artifacts recovered from the wreck. The vessel, which was probably sunk during the great sea battle that ended the First Punic War in 241 BC, was dredged up from the mud near the Egadi Islands in the 1970s. There's also a good display of maritime and archaeological finds, as well as some Roman ruins with mosaics just beyond the museum's doors. A combined ticket allows you to take in the rather sparse archaeological area behind the museum, too.

The Castle of Baia, which commands a 360-degree view eastward across the Bay of Pozzuoli and westward across the open Tyrrhenian, provides a fittingly dramatic setting for the Archaeological Museum of Campi Flegrei. Though the castle's foundation dates to the late 15th century, when Naples was ruled by the House of Aragon and an invasion by Charles VIII of France looked imminent, the structure was radically transformed under the Spanish viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo after the nearby eruption of Monte Nuovo in 1538. Indeed, its bastions bear a striking resemblance to the imposing Castel Sant'Elmo in Naples.

The museum has been reorganized to describe in detail the history of Cumae, Puteoli, Baiae, Misenum, and Liternum. Sculptures, architectural remains, pottery, glass, jewelry, and coins are displayed in the ex-dormitories of the soldiers. Of the various exhibitions, the first on the suggested itinerary consists of plaster casts from the Roman period found at the Baia archaeological site. This gives valuable insights into the techniques used by the Romans to make copies from Greek originals in bronze from the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Pride of place goes to the sacellum, or small sanctuary, transported from nearby Misenum and tastefully displayed inside the Aragonese tower, the Torre Tenaglia. Standing about 20 feet high, the sacellum has been reconstructed, with two of its original six columns (the rest in steel) and a marble architrave with its dedicatory inscription to the husband-and-wife team who commissioned the sanctuary's restoration in the 2nd century AD. The beneficent couple is depicted above this. Another highlight is the marble splendor of the Ninfeo Imperiale di Punta Epitaffio, or Nymphaeum of Emperor Claudius, which was discovered in 1969 some 23 feet below the waters of the Bay of Pozzuoli. Note that although this museum is poorly maintained and staffed, it's well worth visiting, given that it's not often that you find yourself alone among such fascinating ancient artifacts.

Constructed to house the treasures found at the Sanctuary of Hera Lacinia, as well as many antiquities recovered from the surrounding seabed, the museum is situated in the heart of the old city of Crotone, close to the seafront castle. The most precious part of the collection is the so-called Treasure of Hera, with the goddess's finely wrought gold diadem and belt pendant. You can also see the rare 5th-century-BC bronze askos (container for oil) in the form of a mermaid, illegally exported to the United States and subsequently recovered by the Italian government from the Getty Museum in California.

The museum's wealth of material from Roman times includes portrait busts from the Republican era, semiprecious gems, amber—including preserved flies—and goldwork, and a fine glass collection. Beautiful pre-Christian mosaics are from the floors of Roman houses and palaces.

An excellent collection of Etruscan artifacts from throughout the region sheds light on Perugia as a flourishing city long before it fell under Roman domination in 310 BC. Little else remains of Perugia's mysterious ancestors, although the Arco di Augusto, in Piazza Fortebraccio, the northern entrance to the city, is of Etruscan origin.

Venice is the only major Italian city without an ancient past, yet it hosts a collection of ancient art that rivals those in Rome and Naples. The small museum housing this collection was first established in 1596, when the heirs of Cardinal Domenico Grimani—a noted humanist who had left his collection of original Greek (5th–1st centuries BC) and Roman antiquities to the Republic—inaugurated the historical artworks in Sansovino's then recently completed library in Piazza San Marco. You can see part of the collection, displayed just as Grimani (or at least his immediate heirs) had conceived it, in the vestibule of the Libreria Sansoviniana, which the museum shares with the Biblioteca Marciana. Highlights in the rest of the museum include the statue of Kore (420 BC); the 1st-century BC Ara Grimani, an elaborate Hellenistic altar stone with a bacchanalian scene; and a tiny but refined 1st-century BC crystal woman's head, which some say depicts Cleopatra. When you arrive, scan the QR code to get a handy museum guide on your phone.

A bomb blast during World War II exposed the remains of the immense Temple of Fortune that covered the entire hillside under present-day Palestrina. Large arches and terraces are now visible, and you can walk or take a local bus up to the imposing Palazzo Barberini, which crowns the highest point and was built in the 17th century along the semicircular lines of the original Roman temple.

The palace now contains the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Palestrina, with items found on the site that date from throughout the classical period, including Etruscan bronzes, pottery, and terra-cotta statuary as well as Roman artifacts. In addition, a model of the temple as it was in ancient times helps you appreciate its original immensity. The museum highlight, however, is a massive, incredibly preserved, 1st-century-BC mosaic that colorfully details a Nile River scene, complete with ancient Egyptian boats, waving palm trees, and animals.

The impressive collection of Siracusa's splendid if scruffy archaeological museum is organized by region and time period around a central atrium and ranges from Neolithic pottery to fine Greek statues and vases. Compare the Landolina Venus—a headless goddess of love who rises out of the sea in measured modesty (a 1st-century-AD Roman copy of the Greek original)—with the much earlier (300 BC) elegant Greek statue of Hercules in Section C. Of a completely different style is a marvelous fanged Gorgon, its tongue sticking out, that once adorned the cornice of the Temple of Athena to ward off evildoers. It's a massive collection so be prepared to be fatigued at some point while walking around the disheveled space-station-esque modernist (1961) complex. 

This archaeology museum is the oldest public museum in Sicily, with a small but excellent collection, including a marvelously reconstructed Doric frieze from the Greek temple at Selinunte, which reveals the high level of artistic culture attained by the Greeks in Sicily some 2,500 years ago. There are also lion's head water spouts from 480 BC, as well as other excavated pieces from around Sicily, including Taormina and Agrigento, which make up part of an informative exhibition on the broader history of the island. After admiring the artifacts, wander through the two plant-filled courtyards, and be sure to check the website for special culture nights, when the museum is open late to host musical performances.

With dazzling "virtual" versions of Herculaneum's streets and squares and a multidimensional simulation of Vesuvius erupting, Herculaneum's 1st-century-meets-the-21st-century museum is a must for kids and adults alike. After stopping at the ticket office, you descend, as in an excavation, to a floor below. You'll experience Herculaneum's Villa dei Papiri before and (even more dramatically) during the eruption, courtesy of special effects: enter "the burning cloud" of AD 79; then emerge, virtually speaking, inside Pompeii's House of the Faun, which can be seen both as it is and as it was for two centuries BC. The next re-creation is again Villa dei Papiri. Then comes a stellar pre- and postflooding view of Baia's Nymphaeum, the now-displaced statues arrayed as they were in the days of Emperor Claudius, who commissioned them.

Visitors here are invited to take a front-row seat for "Day and Night in the Forum of Pompeii," with soldiers, litter-bearing slaves, and toga-clad figures moving spectrally to complete the spell; or to make a vicarious visit to the Lupanari brothels, their various pleasures illustrated in graphic virtual frescoes along the walls. A wooden model of Herculaneum's theater, its virtual re-creation, reminds us that it was here that a local farmer, while digging a well, first came across what proved to be not merely a single building but a whole town. Equally fascinating are the virtual baths. There's also a 3D film of Vesuvius erupting, replete with a fatalistic narrative and cataclysmic special effects: the words of Pliny the Younger provide a timeless commentary while the floor vibrates under your feet.

Glimpse the lives of 19th-century Milanese aristocrats in a visit to this lovely historic house museum, once the home of two brothers, Barons Fausto and Giuseppe Bagatti. Family members inhabited the house until 1974; it opened to the public as a museum in 1984. The house is decorated with the brothers’ fascinating collection of 15th- and 16th-century Renaissance art, furnishings, and objects, including armor, musical instruments, and textiles. The detailed audio guide included with admission provides a thorough insight into the history of the artworks and intriguing stories of the family itself.

The 19th-century collector and antiquarian Stefano Bardini turned his palace into his own private museum. Upon his death, the collection was turned over to the state and includes an interesting assortment of Etruscan pieces, sculpture, paintings, and furniture that dates mostly from the Renaissance and Baroque eras.

The 18th-century Palazzo Pomaranci Santomasi houses an assorted collection of the celebrated Sorrentine decorative art of intarsia, or intarsi (inlays), comprising mainly 19th-century furniture and some modern artistic creations. Also on view are 19th-century paintings, prints, and photographs of the Sorrentine Peninsula.

Former mayor of Capri Town, designer of the island's most ravishing turn-of-the-20th-century villas, author of delightfully arcane books, and even paleontologist par excellence, Edwin Cerio was Capri's leading genius and eccentric. His most notorious work was a Capri guidebook that all but urged tourists to stay away. His most beautiful work was the Villa Solitaria—once home to famed novelist Compton Mackenzie and set over the sea on the Via Pizzo Lungo path. He also set up this small but interesting museum, which conserves finds from the island. Room 1 displays Pleistocene fossils of pygmy elephant, rhino, and hippopotamus, which all grazed here 200,000–300,000 years ago, when the climate and terrain were very different. Although much of the island's important archaeological finds have been shipped off to Naples, Room 4 displays a scantily labeled collection of vases, mosaics, and stuccowork from the Greek and Roman periods. The terrace gives unrivaled views of the piazzetta and the bay, and was where Clark Gable took breakfast in Vittorio De Sica's 1960 film It Started In Naples.

Opened in 1964 to honor the 400th anniversary of Michelangelo's death, this museum displays photographs, plaster casts, and documents relating to the artist's work.

Piero della Francesca is the star at this small provincial museum, where his works include the reassembled altarpiece of the Misericordia (1445–62) and frescoes depicting the Resurrection (circa 1460), Saint Julian, and the disputed Saint Louis of Toulouse, which is possibly the work of a close follower of the artist. Other works of interest are those by Santi di Tito (1536–1603), also from Sansepolcro, and Pontormo's San Quintino (1517–18).

The impressive civic museum occupies what was the "new" Palazzo del Popolo; the Torre Grossa is adjacent. Dante visited San Gimignano for only one day as a Guelph ambassador from Florence to ask the locals to join the Florentines in supporting the pope—just long enough to get the main council chamber named after him.

Upstairs, paintings by famous Renaissance artists Pinturicchio (Madonna Enthroned) and Benozzo Gozzoli (Madonna and Child), and two large tondi (circular paintings) by Filippino Lippi (circa 1457–1504) attest to the importance and wealth of San Gimignano.

The Palazzo del Comune, begun around 1295, houses the Museo Civico, containing works by local artists from the 13th to 19th century. The courtyard (which is free) houses an equestrian sculpture by native son Marino Marini: it takes awhile to figure it out, and it's worth taking the time to do so.

Appropriately situated in the heart of Roman Milan, this museum housed in a former monastery displays everyday utensils, jewelry, silver plate, and several fine examples of mosaic pavement from Mediolanum, the ancient Roman name for Milan. The museum opens into a garden that is flanked by the square tower of the Roman circus and the polygonal Ansperto tower, adorned with frescoes dating to the end of the 13th and 14th centuries that portray St. Francis and other saints receiving the stigmata.

This museum contains Etruscan and Roman sculpture and pottery excavated from around the area. According to cognoscenti, the Etruscan collection is one of the best in Italy.

Opened in 2019 and housed in the Beata Vergine degli Angeli convent, next to the church of SS. Sacramento, there's a small municipal museum with Greco-Roman artifacts excavated in the area here, plus temporary art shows (Warhol and Banksy in recent years). Multimedia displays bring to life handsome amphorae, Roman bathhouse bronze statuary, and finds from the necropolis at nearby Villa di Santa Maria di Merino.

For lovers of ceramics, this local museum is the best place to learn about the ancient art that has been practiced here since the Greeks colonized Sicily. It has a fantastic, if rather eccentrically curated, collection of ceramics from throughout this history as well as original pieces from local artisans. The museum is housed in the sadly decaying Palazzo Trabia, an aristocratic palace acquired by the local government and converted especially to house these extensive ceramic exhibitions.

This lagoon-side archaeological museum displays many of the better-preserved urns and other artifacts recovered from nearby excavation sites, including Tharros. It is also the main home of the Giganti di Mont'e Prama—unique nuraghic stone statues recovered from the Sinis Peninsula in the 1970s but only recently viewable in their restored state. The visit takes about an hour. Buy a combination ticket to see the Museo Civico and the ruins at Tharros.

This imposing Palladian palazzo (1550) would be worthy of a visit even if it didn't house Vicenza's Museo Civico. Because of the ample space surrounding the building, Palladio combined elements of an urban palazzo with those he used in his country villas. The museum's important Venetian holdings include significant paintings by Cima, Tiepolo, Piazetta, and Tintoretto, but its main attraction is an extensive collection of rarely found works by painters from the Vicenza area, among them Jacopo Bassano (1515–92) and the eccentric and innovative Francesco Maffei (1605–60), whose work foreshadowed important currents of Venetian painting of subsequent generations. An audio guide QR code (€5) via your smartphone or tablet is available at the entrance.