Castello del Buonconsiglio monumenti e collezioni provinciali

Lapidario

The Lapidario is the oldest Trentino public collection.

In the mid- 16th century, the Prince-Bishop Cristoforo Madruzzo collected epigraphs and antique marble in the Castello del Buonconsiglio and in the Villa delle Albere; a collection that was admired by the eminent participants of the Council of Trent.

Three centuries later, in 1824, Trento’s podesta, Benedetto Giovanelli, gathered together medieval and more recent stone works, and placed them in the town hall. These pieces were all considered Monumenti patri even if some were only fragments.

The Civic Museum was inaugurated in 1856 and eventually, in 1924, the new National Museum was established in the Castello del Buonconsiglio: the Lapidario was set in the courtyard near the garden where the ancient version of lawn tennis was once played.

The collection is now displayed inside Castelvecchio. The two medieval rooms, among the more striking of the castle, were created by hollowing out the rock and the stone flooring came from this excavated rock. The works, dating from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century, originated from the main Trentino churches and palaces: a fascinating page of art history and a charming testimony to the city and its surrounding area’s transformation in a thousand years of history.