Entrance to the Maffeian Lapidary Museum

The Lapidary Museum Maffeiano, established in the heart of Verona around the mid-eighteenth century, is one of the oldest public museum institutions in Europe.

Its name is inextricably linked to the Marquis Scipione Maffei (1675-1755), an important scholar and erudite from Verona, well-known and appreciated abroad for the versatility of his intellect and for the multiplicity of his interests applied to various fields of knowledge. The Museum was born from over thirty years of passionate work by Maffei, during which he collected hundreds and hundreds of inscriptions and entrusted the construction of a suitable place for their exhibition and preservation to the Veronese architect and painter Alessandro Pompei, firmly convinced that “what is useful to the public must be made public property”.

The name chosen by Maffei for his museum is emblematic in this regard: Museum Veronense or museum of the city of Verona, a public institution in every respect, which, unlike private art collections, which were quite widespread at that time, could guarantee the preservation and safeguarding of the exhibited artifacts, preventing the much-feared dispersion, which, on the contrary, often faced materials stored in small private museums after the death of their owners. For more than a century, the Maffeiano would remain the “Museum” of Verona par excellence and would constitute one of the must-see stops for the many foreign travelers (among them, in September 1786, also J.W. Goethe) who, coming from Northern Europe, arrived in Italy to undertake the Grand Tour, the formative journey aimed at gaining direct knowledge of classical art and culture.