Museo civico Palazzo dei Consoli. Gubbio (PG)
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The Museo Civico is hosted inside Palazzo dei Consoli, in the historic city center of Gubbio. This building is visible from very far distances; the façade overlooks Piazza Grande, a highly elevated terrace, and political fulcrum of the town of Gubbio in the 14th century.
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Palazzo dei Consoli was built in the 14th century as the residence of the supreme magistrates in the free Commune, and is the premises of the Civic Museum of the town today.
The Civic Museum of Gubbio undoubtedly deserves a visit, not only because of the suggestive scenery in which it is immersed, but above all for the collections of art it preserves inside. The archaeological section preserves a collection of very famous “Eugubine Tablets”, the most important document in the Umbrian language and the most comprehensive description of religious rites ever found. The works displayed in the Art Gallery, such as the wooden Crucifix, work of the Master of the Cross from Gubbio, and the Gonfalon of Sinibaldo Ibi, a banner depicting The Madonna of the Mercy and St Ubald are also important.
In fact the Museum houses various sections. The archaeological collection is among the richest in Umbria and includes finds dating back to the Umbrian and Roman ages, some inscriptions and a conspicuous numismatic collection. The core of the collection is represented by the Eugubine Tablets, seven engraved bronze sheets, representing the most important text ever known in the Umbrian language. The collection of ceramics, set up in the Loggetta Room and along the secret corridor displaying majolica items dating from the 14th to the 19th centuries, is also worth noting. Among them, the Renaissance production of the Master Giorgio Andreoli, who made célèbre the red-luster and golden-luster ceramic tin-glazing technique from Gubbio, stands out. The rooms on the main floor of the palace—the Piano Nobile—house the Art Gallery. The collection includes majestic painted crosses like the wooden Crucifix, work of the Master of the Cross from Gubbio, and polyptychs painted on wooden panels, such as the 14th century Illuminated Reliquary.
The collection includes detached frescoes coming from the churches in town, executed in the 14th century by painters from Gubbio, and numerous works executed around the 16th and 17th century by local and foreign artists. Among these there are the artists Pietro Paolo Baldinacci, Benedetto and Virgilio Nucci, Federico Brunori, Felice Damiani from Gubbio and Orlando Merlini and Sinibaldo Ibi from Perugia.
On the ground floor of the Museum two new sections have been inaugurated: one section illustrates the works, documents and objects relating to that historical period in Italy—and in Gubbio—that is called Risorgimento, i.e. the 19th century movement for the unification of the nation; the other section displays a collection of ancient oriental objects, from India, Tibet and South-East Asia that were donated to the Municipality of Gubbio in the 1920s.
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