visit.Gemona

Civic Museum
of Palazzo Elti

Gemona Civic Museum: an original itinerary of art and history

The Civic Museum of Palazzo Elti contains paintings and sculptures of great artistic value covering centuries of history. It is located on  three floors of a residence which was most likely constructed in the fourteenth century, located across from Casa Antonelli in the historic town centre of Gemona.  The museum contains valuable paintings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, primarily by artists from the regions of Veneto and Friuli, including Cima da Conegliano, Pellegrino da San Daniele and Pomponio Amalteo. There is also an interesting late thirteenth-century sarcophagus, a relic of medieval Gemona.

Artworks in the Civic Museum

The museum’s original collection, consisting of portraits of the Elti family, has been expanded over the years with works of art salvaged from buildings that collapsed in the 1976 earthquake, including the churches of Beata Vergine delle Grazie and San Giovanni in Brolo, two churches in Gemona built in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. 

The first floor features a  Madonna and Child by Cima da Conegliano dated 1496, a Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph and Saint Elisabeth of Hungary attributed to Pellegrino da San Daniele, and a ceiling tempera painted with characters from the Old and New Testaments by Pomponio Amalteo in 1533 on commission of the confraternity of the church of San Giovanni. The ceiling of the fourteenth-century church destroyed in the earthquake originally counted 42 tempera paintings, 36 of which survive.    

Madonna and Child by Cima da Conegliano(1496)

The art of subsequent centuries is represented by the  legacy of the Elti family and the Fantoni-Baldissera Collection dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, donated to the city by Valentino Baldissera, an erudite priest of Gemona who received it from the widow of local painter Luigi Fantoni in exchange for saying a certain number of masses. The collection includes a number of works collected in Austria by painter Luigi Fantoni, including three canvases by  Kremerschmidt and works by Georg Wolker, notable eighteenth-century Austrian painter Paul Troger, and Franz Joseph Spiegler, one of the most important altarpiece and fresco painters in southern Germany in the eighteenth century.  There is also an interesting eighteenth century oil painting on canvas of the Madonna and Child with saints, a copy of a great altarpiece painted by  Rubens in Antwerp in the early seventeenth century.  

More recent artistic experience is represented through the work of a number of Gemona painters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries whose fame extended beyond their local community: Giacomo and Antonio Brollo, Raimondo D’Aronco, Giuseppe Barazzutti, Osvaldo Bierti, Arturo Barazzutti and Francesco Bierti.

Plan for the monument to King Victor Emanuel II - Raimondo D'Aronco (1883)

Ten artists and ten works you won’t want to miss at the Civic Museum in Gemona

  1. Giovanni Battista Cima, known as Cima da Conegliano (Conegliano 1459/60-1517/18), Madonna and Child, 1496, tempera on wood, 89 x 68.8 cm, added to the civic collection following the destruction of the church of the Beata Vergine delle Grazie in the 1976 earthquake. 
  2. Unknown Austrian or German painter, Saint Anne with Mary and the Baby Jesus, with Saints Rupert, Margaret, Joseph and Joachim, 1505, oil on canvas, 216 x 176 cm, added to the civic collection following the destruction of the church of the Beata Vergine delle Grazie in the 1976 earthquake.  
  3. Martino da Udine, known as Pellegrino da San Daniele (attr.), (Udine 1467-1547), Madonna with Child with Saint Joseph and Saint Elisabeth of Hungary, oil on canvas, 249×175 cm, added to the civic collection following the destruction of the church of the Beata Vergine delle Grazie in the 1976 earthquake.    
  4. Pomponio Amalteo (Motta di Livenza 1505 – San Vito al Tagliamento 1588), The Prophet Joshua, tempera on wood, 135×147 cm,  added to the civic collection following the destruction of the church of the San Giovanni Battista in the 1976 earthquake.   
  5. Sebastiano Secante the Elder ( documented between 1549 and 1581), Madonna and Child with Saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus, 1558, oil on canvas, 210 x 148 cm,  added to the civic collection following the destruction of the church of the San Giovanni Battista in the 1976 earthquake. 
  6. Jacopo Negretti, known as Palma the Younger (attr.), (Venice 1548 circa – 1628), Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint John the Evangelist, oil on canvas, 210 x 147 cm, added to the civic collection following the destruction of the church of the San Giovanni Battista in the 1976 earthquake.  
  7. Anton Hickel (Bömisch-Leipa 1745 – Hamburg 1798), Portrait of Pope Pius VI, 1782, oil on copper, 51 x 40.6 cm.
  8. Antonio Dugoni (Cividale 1827 – 1874), Portrait of Don Valentino Baldissera, 1871, oil on canvas, 72 x 59 cm. 
  9. Raimondo D'Aronco (Gemona 1857 – Sanremo 1932), Plan for the monument to King Victor Emanuel II: detail of the main front, 1883, ink on paper, 110 x 132 cm. 
  10. Arturo Barazzutti (Gemona 1899 – Rome 1985), Portrait of Antonio Celotti, 1923, oil on canvas, 64 x 47 cm.
1. Madonna and Child by Cima da Conegliano (1496)
1. Madonna and Child by Cima da Conegliano (1496)
Saint Anne with Mary and the Baby Jesus, with Saints Rupert, Margaret, Joseph and Joachim, 1505 – unknown Austrian or German painter (1505)
Saint Anne with Mary and the Baby Jesus, with Saints Rupert, Margaret, Joseph and Joachim, 1505 – unknown Austrian or German painter (1505)
3. Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph and Saint Elisabeth of Hungary – Pellegrino da San Daniele
3. Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph and Saint Elisabeth of Hungary – Pellegrino da San Daniele
4. The Prophet Joshua – Pomponio Amalteo
4. The Prophet Joshua – Pomponio Amalteo
6. Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint John the Evangelist – Palma the Younger
6. Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint John the Evangelist – Palma the Younger
7. Portrait of Pope Pius VI – Anton Hickel (1782)
7. Portrait of Pope Pius VI – Anton Hickel (1782)
8. Portrait of Don Valentino Baldissera – Antonio Dugoni (1871)
8. Portrait of Don Valentino Baldissera – Antonio Dugoni (1871)
10. Portrait of Antonio Celotti – Arturo Barazzutti (1923)
10. Portrait of Antonio Celotti – Arturo Barazzutti (1923)

Palazzo Elti, home to the Civic Museum of Gemona del Friuli

Palazzo Elti was built towards the end of the fifteenth century and extensively reworked in subsequent centuries by the de’ Cramis family. It was for a long time the most magnificent home in Gemona, and in fact Emperor Frederick III stopped overnight here on his way to Rome for his crowning in 1452.

In 1519 it was purchased by Andrea Helt, of the wealthy Rauris family of Salzburg merchants, who had been residing in Gemona for some time. Numerous members of the Elti family stood out in the community as magistrates, and in the second half of the seventeenth century they were registered among the noble families of Friuli with the title of Counts of Rodeano. Destroyed by the 1976 earthquake, the complex has been rebuilt and houses the Civic Museum, the Community’s Historic Archives and the Glemonense Library.

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Winter
Tuesday – Sunday: 10.00-12.30 / 14.30-18.00
Monday: closed
Summer
Every day: 9.30-13.00 / 15.00-19.00

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FREE ENTRY

accessible

Disabled parking spots nearby | There are no differences in level in the area in front of and behind the entrance door | Accessible toilets | Elevator | Entire collection accessible for the hearing-impaired and for persons with motorial and mental disabilities | Not accessible for the visually impaired

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Valentino Baldissera

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