Audio tour 01-Il Museo Pepoli

THE MUSEUM AND ITS COLLECTIONS

The “Agostino Pepoli” Museum is located in the premises of the former convent of the Carmelite Fathers, a large building whose original nucleus was built in the second half of the 13th century, renovated, enlarged and remodeled over a long period of time starting from the first half of fourteenth to eighteenth centuries. The large building is adjacent to the Sanctuary of Maria SS. Annunziata, where the fourteenth-century simulacrum of Maria SS is kept. of Trapani, a valuable sculpture in Carrara marble depicting the Madonna with the Child in her arms, reportedly by the hand of the Tuscan sculptor Nino Pisano, over the centuries an object of worship and a privileged destination for pilgrimages from the entire Mediterranean basin.

The Museum is named after its founder, Count Agostino Pepoli, who established it as a Civic Museum between 1906 and 1908. The rich heritage preserved there originates largely from three important collections: the "antiquity" collections and of art” by Count Agostino Sieri Pepoli; the picture gallery of General Giovan Battista Fardella and the museum of Count Francesco Hernandez of Erice.

Count Pepoli's collections include paintings, jewels, works of applied art, historical relics, archaeological finds and therefore reflect the eclectic, Enlightenment-style culture that was typical of the Trapani patron.

The Fardella collection is mainly made up of paintings from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century Neapolitan paintings, purchased by the General on the Neapolitan antiques market.

The collection of Count Francesco Hernandez includes paintings, marble sculptures, nativity scenes, ceramics, archaeological finds.

The exhibition itinerary is divided over the two floors of the building: on the ground floor there is the section dedicated to Renaissance Sculpture and the Historical-Risorgimento section, which includes, in addition to various relics, also a selection of nineteenth-century paintings. On the first floor you can admire the art gallery, with paintings ranging from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century, and the large section of applied arts, which includes nativity figurines, ceramics, textile works of art, gold and silver, coral artefacts , jewels. The renovated archaeological section is nearing completion, but not yet open to the public.