Museo Civico di Montepulciano
A few steps from Piazza Grande, behind the brick façade of the 14th-century Palazzo Neri Orselli, four floors of painting, terracotta and archaeology open up — including one underground. The building itself, with its inner courtyard, stone well and loggia, sets the tone before you've looked at a single work.
The collection moves from Etruscan grave goods to a panel painting that may or may not be a Caravaggio. That attribution — a portrait thought to show Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the artist's patron — arrived in 2011 and comes with a touch-screen exploring the diagnostic work behind it. Draw your own conclusions.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to linger on the Luca Signorelli Madonna and the Domenico Beccafumi panel of Sant'Agnese Segni holding a tiny model of the city — Montepulciano in miniature, right here in Montepulciano. The English audio guide is included in the €6 admission and earns its keep, given that most wall text is in Italian.
The story behind Museo Civico di Montepulciano
The collection began with a bequest. Francesco Crociani, born in Montepulciano in 1781, spent decades gathering paintings — Florentine and Bolognese works from the 17th and 18th centuries, alongside pieces by Netherlandish artists — and donated them to the municipality in 1859. Works from closed ecclesiastical institutions filled out the holdings over the following decades.
The museum opened in Palazzo Neri Orselli in 1954 (some sources say 1957). An archaeological section, drawing on finds from the local Etruscan and Roman necropolis at Acquaviva, was added from 2000 onward. The collection also holds work by Anna Marocco, a Montepulciano-born artist whose paintings from the early 1920s were identified and championed by museum director Roberto Longi.
Good to know
Closed Tuesdays. Open daily April through October (10:00–18:00 in April, 10:00–19:00 May to November). Plan about an hour. The nearest train station is 8 km away with infrequent buses, so a taxi from Chiusi-Chianciano is often the more reliable approach.
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What travellers say about Museo Civico di Montepulciano
This place should be one of your stops while visiting Montepulciano. We spent two nights in town and had some time to kill before our next train. So glad we did, there is a ton of history and amazing art here. I don't know Maybe we paid eight to 10 euros to enter, but well worth it. We took about an hour to go through and so glad we did.
A nice place to enjoy art and history in Montepulciano. Great painting collection. A room of Caravaggio! But the light installation should be much better. Now the light is so bad that you even can not enjoy beautiful paintings.
A museum worth visiting when in Montepulciano. The audio guide was an excellent way to focus on the highlights.
Nice place to hide from sun and vine tasting crowd. Horrible lighting in some halls, all you see if multiple light glares.
Mostre sempre interessanti Personale gentile If you like to be amazed by some cool collections.. Get into the pinacoteca, you will enjoy even other regions of Italy (Aosta Valley in that case, due to the temporary exib.) A nice place to enjoy art in Montepulciano
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