Visit to Palazzo Maffei Museum, Verona

Saturday October 10 was our last full day in Verona.  High of 21C and mainly sunny.   We decided to head into the historic centre via the Ponte Pietra (Stone Bridge) below the Castel San Pietro.  

Walking on road under the Castel

Crossing the Ponte Pietra (Stone Bridge)

Looking up at the Castel from the bridge

We decided to have a quick picnic lunch outside the Salumeria Gironda where we had bought some provisions on Friday.

Delicious cheese and meats

Buzzy outdoor area overlooking the river

We continued walking to our destination, the Palazzo Maffei Museum located in Piazza delle Erbe.  The oldest part of the Palazzo was built in the late Middle Ages.  It was expanded in the 17th century by the Veronese bankers Marcantonio and Rolandino Maffei.  In 2015, Luigi Carlon, an Italian entrepreneur born in 1939 in Verona, purchased the Palazzo at auction to house his incredible collection. The house-museum Palazzo Maffei opened in February 2020 after being restored.

It features the Luigi Carlon collection which has more than 700 works that encompass more than five centuries of history.  The collection was born from more than fifty years of collecting and it includes Veronese paintings as well as masterpieces of modern and contemporary art.  Today, Vanessa Carlon, Luigi's daughter is the director of the Museum.  "The museum creates a dialogue between eras, paintings, sculptures, applied arts objects, furniture, books and decorative artefacts that coexist in a narrative that avoids the rigidity of the traditional museum."

The outside of the Palazzo Maffei Casa Museo-- Lamberti Tower on the left is the highest in the city.  Begun in 1172, it was finally completed in 1464.

Outside the entrance

There is a beautiful winding staircase with a piece by Anna Galtarossa, Comet, 2025

Looking up as we walked to the first floor entrance

Ticket office in this beautiful room.

The exhibit was entitled: New Visions for Other Horizons.  Glass piece was by Arcangelo Sassolino (b. 1967), Something Has Changed, 2019.

Each room had beautiful ceilings and the displays were amazing.  The first few rooms had mainly older pieces, with a few more modern works mixed in.  The second floor had mainly modern and contemporary pieces.  The collection was superb and it has been brilliantly curated.  Most rooms grouped the works into themes.

One of the opening rooms

On the left a piece by Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Spatical Concept. Waiting, 1964-1965.  Fontana was one of the greatest innovators of Italian art after WWII.  On the right, Second Maestro di San Zeno (Verona c. 1320-1360), Triptych: Crucifixion; St. James and St. Rusticus (left)
and St. Augustine and St. Lawrence (right).  Very interesting pairing.

Zenone Veronese, (Verona 1484- Salò 1552), The Abduction of Helen

Arturo Martini (Treviso 1889- Milano 1947), Maternity, 1932-1933.  
The room featured a number of older paintings of the Madonna and Child.

In the Madonna and Child room

Francesco Hayez (Venezia 1791- Milano 1882), Virgin in prayer, 1840.  
Hayez is considered one of the greatest exponents of Romantic painting in Italy.

There was a room with the theme of War.  There are a number of paintings from the turn of the 18th century and works by artists who had lived through WWII.

Sculpture by Marino Marini (Pistola 1901-Viareggio 1980), Small Miracle, 1951-- where both the horse and rider are synthesised- "the loss of all human value verges on Abstract Expressionism." The painting on the left is by Alberto Burri (Città di Castello 1915- Nice 1995), All Black, 1957.

There was a Room with the theme of Venus and Other Women.

Picasso (Malaga 1881- Mougins 1973), Head of a Woman, 1943.  

Pietro Antonio Rotari (Verona 1707 - Saint Petersburg 1762),
Portrait of a Russian Girl and Portrait of a Young Woman.

Another room featured Verona scenes--- we had visited many of the locations.

Giuseppe Canella (Verona 1788-Firenze 1847), View of Ponte Navi.

Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara 1842- Paris 1931), Market in Piazza delle Erbe, Verona, c. 1887-1890.

The next room was the Blue Room, furnished with the eclectic taste that distinguishes the entire collection.  It provides visitors with a sense of how paintings, furniture and art objects were arranged in the Carlon family's private home

On the wall- Giuseppe Caprogrossi (Roma 1900-1972), Surface CP/833/A, 1966;
Gerrit Rietveld (Utrecht 1888-1964), Red and Blue Chair, 1917.

Josef Albers (Bottrop, Germany 1888-New Haven 1976), Homage to the Square, 1954.  Starting in 1949-50, over the next 26 years, Albers produced more than 2000 variations on the theme of three or four squares nested one within the other.

Giovanni Boldini, Donna Franca Florio, c. 1924. The woman in the painting was one of the most celebrated beauties of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.   

There was a room with a number of ceramic pieces and other works.

What a collection!

Casteldurante manufacture, 16th century.  Jar with a portrait of Catarina Bella, Majolica.

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Pablo Picasso.  A number of ceramic pieces from 1953-1969.

There was a large room that houses some of the most important masterpieces of the Carlon Collection.  They mark the transition from the ancient to the modern.  

Katsushika Hokusai (Tokyo 1760-1849), The Great Wave of Kanazawa, 1831. This is the most famous woodcut in his series Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji.  There are just a few original copies in the world. 

Umberto Boccioni (Reggio Calabria 1882- Verona 1916), The Grand Canal in Venice, 1907.

Amedeo Modigliani (Livorno 1884- Paris 1920), Monsieur Chéron, c. 1915.  This rare portrait of a man by Modigliani portrays the art dealer Georges Chéron.

Filippo de Pisis (Ferraro 1896- Milano 1956), Composition II, 1916.  Ink and Watercolour on paper.

Gino Severini (Cortona 1883-Paris 1966), Rhythm of a Dancer in Blue, 1913. This piece belongs to a series of works in which Severini, one of the Italian futurists, transforms the movement of dance into an abstract rhythm of forms, lines and colours.  

Art class in the Museum. All were paying close attention to their teacher (she is just outside the photo).

Mario Schifano (Homs 1934-Rome, 1998) Futurism Revisited in Colour.  This piece was a tribute not just to the Italian Futurist group but also to the history of the avant-garde of the early 20th century.  The well-known 1912 photograph depicting five famous Italian Futurists "has been transformed into faceless silhouettes that seem to emerge from the mists of the past as emblems of the extraordinary season of innovation in which they were the moving force."

Pablo Picasso, Seated Woman, 1953.  The woman portrayed in probably Françoise Gilot, who had taken Dora Maar's place as Picasso's lover in 1944.

Georges Braque (Argenteuil 1882-Paris 1963, Fisherwoman- Head II, 1928.  

Paul Klee (Münchenbuchsee 1879-Muralto, 1940, Clustered Houses, 1939.  Klee's famous statement was: Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible what is not always so.

Giorgio Morandi (Bologna 1890-1964), Still Life, 1955. 

René Magritte (Lessines 1898- Brussels, 1967, The Open Window, 1966.  

Marcel Duchamp (Blainville Crevon 1887- Neuilly-sur- Seine 1968), Box in a Suitcase, 1935-1941).  
The idea was to compose a sort of miniature catalogue of all his work,
which would then be produced in 300 copies.

Giorgio de Chirico (Volos 1888- Rome 1978), Greetings from a Distant Friend, 1916.  The brothers Giorgio and Alberto de Chirico settled with their mother in Ferrara in May 1916 and "were fascinated by the atmosphere of the city, in particular the biscuits and sweets arranged
in the pastry shops of the Jewish ghetto."

Leandro Erlich (Buenos Aires 1973), Cloud, 2016.

The top part of Comet.

We headed to the second floor of the exhibit.  Many more fabulous pieces and the arrangements were spectacular.

Felice Casorati (Novara 1883- Torino 1963), The Dream of the Pomegranate, 1912.  The influence of Gustav Klimt and the Viennese Secession is evident in the decorative, two-dimensional rendering.  

Robert Indiana (New Castle, Indiana 1928- Vinalhaven (Maine) 2018, Hope Red/Gold, 2009.

Fausto Melotti (Rovereto 1901-Milano 1986), Simple Counterpoint, 1972. " With a passion for physics and mathematics, as well as music, Melotti composed his sculptures by modules following precise canon." Alberto Burri, Black Red and Wood, 1960, is on the wall. Burri's Woods series sought to evoke the colours of the earth, as well as destruction and pain through the unhealed wounds of memory, exemplified by the blood-red rectangle that dominates at one side.

At the exit in the small bookstore on the second floor.

We took the elevator up to the terrace for fantastic views of Verona.

View of the Piazza delle Erbe and the Lamberti Tower from the terrace of the Palazzo Maffei.

Six rooftop figures: Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Apollo and Minerva. These were created by Gabriele Brunelli (b. Bologna, 1615-1682). The statues echo the ancient Roman Capitolium (dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva) that once stood beneath the site of the Palazzo.

Photo from Museum terrace of the Case Mazzanti (Mazzanti Houses) on Piazza delle Erbe.  The exterior facades are covered in vibrant 16th century Renaissance frescoes.  They were painted around 1500 by Alberto Cavalli.  The residences are built over ancient Roman ruins.  The structures once served as part of the Scaliger family residence before passing to the Mazzanti merchant family.  Today there are commercial establishments on the main floor and private residences above.

It was then time for coffee.  We decided to return to the nearby Caffè Borsari.

Buzzy busy Caffè Borsari

Alonso had a macchiato with a touch of melted dark chocolate, suggested by the woman at the bar.

We still had some time before dinner, so we decided to sit near one end of the Piazza delle Erbe and people watch.  The light was very beautiful just before sunset.

Light on the Piazza delle Erbe

The stalls in the centre of the Piazza and the building with the frescoes. 

View back at the Palazzo Maffei Museum-- gorgeous light.

We had a dinner reservation at 7:00 p.m. at Caffè Monte Baldo where we had stopped for cichettti on Friday.  

We shared a delicious main course of fried fish (lots of fish), a plate of grilled vegetables
and a large mixed salad.

Great meal in a lovely setting--the inside of the restaurant was quite quiet.

Outside of Caffè Monte Baldo-- it was buzzing- locals on both sides of the street having drinks
and others sitting down for dinner.

Walking back to the apartment on the Garibaldi bridge-- Verona at night

We had a wonderful five days in Verona.  We were fortunate to have an Airbnb that was located in a lovely residential area with local food shops just a 20 minute walk from the historic centre.  The city values its history and the Roman ruins and subsequent historic buildings are well preserved and restored.   We really enjoyed the Dorothea Lange exhibit in an archeological setting.  Food was great- lots of local specialties.  We would highly recommend a visit if you are in the area.

On Sunday October 11, we travel to Bologna.