National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art of Basilicata

The Museo nazionale d'arte medievale e moderna della Basilicata is a state art museum located in Palazzo Lanfranchi on Piazzetta Pascoli in the Historic Centre of Matera, Basilicata, Italy. Founded to preserve the cultural heritage of the region and safeguard the memory and identity of the Materan community, the museum opened on 6 May 2003 after Palazzo Lanfranchi was selected as its site in December 1994. In December 2019, it was merged with the Museo archeologico Domenico Ridola to form a new autonomous entity, the Museo nazionale di Matera. The museum is significant for its role in consolidating and displaying the artistic heritage of Basilicata from the Middle Ages to the present, and for its connection to the writer and painter Carlo Levi, whose works and legacy are central to its contemporary art holdings.

The museum was established with the explicit purpose of preventing the dispersal of the region's cultural patrimony and maintaining the collective memory of the Materan community. In December 1994, Palazzo Lanfranchi was identified as the appropriate venue, already housing the offices of the soprintendenza per i beni artistici e storici della Basilicata. The realization of the museum owed much to Michele D'Elia, who served as Soprintendente of Matera and Director of the Istituto superiore per la conservazione ed il restauro from 1987 to 1991, and to Salvatore Abita, with support from the municipal administration and the Fondazione Levi. Following structural adaptation works, the museum opened to the public on 6 May 2003. Owned by the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, the institution underwent a significant administrative change in December 2019, when it was united with the Museo archeologico Domenico Ridola to create the Museo nazionale di Matera, a new body with special autonomy.

The museum is organized into four distinct sections that together span from the medieval period to contemporary practice. The Arte Sacra section reconstructs the history of art in Basilicata from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century through masterpieces of sculpture, painting, and decorative arts drawn from diocesan collections across the region. This section deliberately juxtaposes the millenarian expectations of the medieval period with the free creative activity of modernity. The Collezionismo section focuses on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Neapolitan school paintings from the Ente Morale di Camillo d'Errico of Palazzo San Gervasio, including landscapes, battle scenes, and still lifes, with the aim of creating a genuine museum circuit across the Lucanian territory. The Arte Contemporanea section is anchored by the collection of Carlo Levi, partly on loan from the Fondazione Carlo Levi in Rome, comprising forty-four paintings that capture the soul of southern rural civilization. The Sezione Demoetnoantropologica preserves objects of material culture and everyday life from the Lucanian territory.

The Arte Sacra section contains works that trace the evolution of sacred art in Basilicata, including sculpted capitals from the medieval Benedictine Abbey of Montescaglioso, wooden enthroned Madonnas blending Gothic and Romanesque elements, Byzantine panels, and works from the Renaissance and Baroque periods infused with popular sacrality. The Collezionismo section features paintings by artists including Aniello Falcone, Mattia Preti, Giovan Battista Ruoppolo, Abraham Brueghel, Francesco De Mura, and Pietro Bardellino, as well as works by Graziani, Trombatore, Coppola, Coccorante, Codazzi, and Recco. A notable canvas is Luca Giordano's oil painting Il giuramento di Bruto dopo il suicidio di Lucrezia. The contemporary collection includes Carlo Levi's monumental panel Lucania '61, measuring 18.50 by 3.20 metres, which Levi painted for the Esposizione internazionale Italia '61 in Turin and dedicated to the memory of the Lucanian poet Rocco Scotellaro, symbol of peasant civilization. The contemporary section also holds works by Luigi Guerricchio, a twentieth-century artist from Matera, and terracotta works by Rocco Molinari of Accettura depicting the festa del Maggio di Accettura.

The museum occupies Palazzo Lanfranchi, situated on Piazzetta Pascoli in Matera's Historic Centre. The building has a notable prior history: it originally functioned as a seminary, and from 1864 onward it housed the Liceo ginnasio Emanuele Duni, which has since relocated uptown. Before the museum's establishment, the palace already contained the offices of the regional superintendent for artistic and historical heritage. In front of the museum entrance stands La Goccia, a sculpture by the artist Kengiro Azuma.

The museum is located in the Historic Centre of Matera, a city in the Basilicata region of southern Italy. It is owned by the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali. Since December 2019, it has formed part of the Museo nazionale di Matera, a unified institution with special autonomy that also encompasses the former Museo archeologico Domenico Ridola. The official website is https://www.museonazionaledimatera.it/.