Bolzano Municipal Museum

In Bolzano, only a few steps from the place where the Iceman is exhibited, there is the Bolzano Municipal Museum - "Stadtmuseum Bozen" in German, "Museo Civico di Bolzano" in Italian. Already in 1882 the Bolzano Museum Association was founded by the middle class. Some years later, on the basis of the foundation walls of the medieval Hurlach Residence, the museum was built. Established in the Oltradige Style - a local late-Gothic construction style with elements of the Italian Renaissance period - it was finally inaugurated in 1905. Comprising a collection from Romanesque Madonnas to Gothic parlours, the Bolzano Municipal Museum showed one of the most comprehensive artistic and cultural historical collections of South Tyrol.

In 2003 the museum was temporarily closed, as the building needed adoptions and the collection should have been enlarged. To clarify, the storage rooms resulted unsuitable for storing artworks as far as the climate was concerned. Finally, in 2011 the Bolzano Municipal Museum reopened its doors in a restricted way, with about 200 art pieces from the 8th to the 20th century, exhibited in six halls and in the tower. Among these exhibits, there are stucco works, wooden altars and statues, oil paintings, gold works, ovens and stove tiles, folklore cloths and graphics.

The Bolzano Municipal Museum is also known for its museum library, comprising more than 30,000 historic, artistic and archaeological volumes as well as professional journals. Thanks to new technologies, the collections are documented in the online catalogue of the Town Library and accessible via a special service. And how to reach the museum? It can be found in the Via Cassa di Risparmio road corner Via Museo road, at the beginning of the pedestrian zone and the historic town. On the other side of the Talvera Bridge, at Piazza Vittoria square, there's a parking space (subject to charge). Only a few steps from the museum the urban bus lines stop.