Museum of Archeology of the University of Pavia

The Museum of Archeology of the University of Pavia is an archaeological museum in Pavia, Italy. Established in 1819, it holds the distinction of being one of the oldest archaeological museums in the country, a status it shares with the museum in Padua. The institution operates as a university museum, originally conceived to support practical exercises in archaeology and classical art history. It is situated within the ancient San Matteo hospital in Pavia, a structure dating to the fifteenth century.

The museum originated in 1819 as the Gabinetto numismatico e antiquario, an integral part of the newly founded Institute of Archeology. Its creation was driven by Pier Vittorio Aldini, who won the competition for the first chair of Archeology at the University of Pavia in 1818 and took up the post the following year. Aldini shaped the collection through a prudent purchasing policy, intending it primarily as a didactic tool for students. The museum grew significantly over the centuries through acquisitions and donations. In the 1930s, Pope Pius XI donated a series of Etruscan figurative terracottas, and in 1933 the Superintendency of Antiquities of Naples provided bronze pottery and architectural terracottas from Pompeii. Carlo Albizzati purchased a Volterra overpainted crater and a Campanian red-figured hydra for the museum in 1940. Later additions include a group of Arezzo ceramic specimens donated by Arturo Stenico in the 1970s.

Reflecting its didactic origins, the collection is non-specialist but highly varied, spanning a vast chronological range from the second millennium BC to late antiquity. It encompasses marble sculptures, architectural elements, epigraphs, ceramics, glass, metal objects, gems, and rings. The small bronzes include statuettes of divinities from Egypt, Magna Graecia, Etruria, and the Roman world, featuring types derived from classical Greek statuary as well as Roman figures like Lares statuettes associated with domestic cults. Prehistoric artifacts from various Lombard settlements include stone and bone tools, chipped and polished flints, scraper blades, arrowheads, protohistoric hand-worked coarse pottery, and bronze items such as a spearhead, fibulae, bracelets, and rings. A small collection of Egyptian and oriental material existed by 1845. The museum also preserves a fifteenth-century marble statue of a holy bishop, possibly Saint Augustine, which was formerly located in the Leano courtyard of the University.

The marble sculpture series, largely acquired by Aldini, includes the most valuable piece in the collection: a splendid female head that is a Roman replica of the Aphrodite Sosadra by Calamis. The same collection encompasses a group of Roman marble statues from Velleia and a high-quality private female portrait from the second half of the second century AD. The museum also holds pieces of modern execution that illustrate the history of forgery in the antiquarian trade, notably an eighteenth-century copy of a portrait in the National Museum of Naples, long mistaken for a Hellenistic original. The numismatic collection comprises about 8,000 pieces, including Greek, Roman republican and imperial, Celtic, late antique, and Byzantine coins. Key numismatic acquisitions include the Bellisomi family collection of mostly Roman coins donated in 1821, Rector Arcangelo Spedalieri's collection of 405 mostly Sicilian coins bequeathed around 1820, and the collection of Marquis Stefano Bernardo Majnoni, which enriched the museum with Kufic, Sassanid, and archaic coins from Sybaris and Greek cities in Asia. Additionally, the museum holds two bronze lamina inscriptions with medical prescriptions found at Vernavola, and 66 specimens of engraved gems, scarabs, and cameos of unknown provenance.

The museum is housed inside the ancient San Matteo hospital in Pavia. The hospital building dates back to the fifteenth century, providing a historic setting for the university's archaeological collections.

The Museum of Archeology is located in Pavia, Italy, and operates as part of the University of Pavia. Its ongoing role remains tied to its academic origins, serving as a resource for the study of ancient material culture and classical art history. Information regarding access and current exhibitions is available through the university's official website.