Overview
The collections on display at Palazzo Farnese range from prehistoric to Roman times in the archaeology rooms of the Cittadella Viscontea, they continue down the centuries with mediaeval frescoes detached and transported here from churches in the city and Piacenza, they preserve among stucco festivities large more recent paintings that recount the Farnese splendour, they expand into other forms of 14th- and 17th-century figurative art in the Picture Gallery, they do not forget ancient weapons, especially from the 16th century, they reach back to the Risorgimento with documents on the decades of Italian Unification, and even include an exceptional collection of carriages. Between 1800 and 1900, in fact, the citizen of Piacenza Dionigi Barattieri realised that the engine was making the previous means of transport disappear, and bought a large number of them so that their material memory would not be lost.
In short, you will never get bored, but special attention must be paid to at least two truly unique presences. One is Etruscan, the so-called divinatory liver of the first or second century BC: a bronze reproduction of a sheep's liver used in rites of interpretation of divine wills. The other is a tondo depicting the Madonna adoring the Child with St John the Baptist, a late 15th-century work by Sandro Botticelli: the scene amidst rose bushes, ears of wheat and flowers is still mounted in the splendid original frame. The tondo belonged to the local Landi family, which has owned it since at least the 17th century.
