Mirabilis Exhibition at the Popes’ Palace, Avignon Staged in a grand hall in the Popes’ Palace in 2018 was an exhibition which highlighted the treasures found across Avignon’s five main museums and galleries: the Petit Palais, Calvet, Requien, Roure and Lapidaire. What made it rather special was the fact that it was curated by Christian Lacroix. Despite the fact that…
Petit Palais Museum, Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon, France A stone’s throw away from the Palace of the Popes is an impressive 14th century building which is home to an impressive collection of medieval statutes and paintings. Like the other museums of Avignon, it had been raided by Christian Lacroix for his exhibition across the square, but nonetheless it was…
Calvet Museum, Musée Calvet, Avignon, France Like other museums in Avignon in 2018, the Calvet had their collection raided for an exhibition at the Pope’s Palace by Christian Lacroix. I had thought that this sounded like the most interesting museum in the city, but I think maybe Mr Lacroix’s excellent selection of goodies somewhat depleted the Calvet… The building itself…
…continued from Part One… Once you have explored the sculpture of the Petit Palais, you move swiftly on to a collection of Italian paintings. The collection itself has an interesting history. Many of the paintings on show were part of the so-called Campana collection. You also get to see snippets of the decoration of the original building – but sadly…
Lagoon Navigation: 2000 Years of Secrets Revealed by the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia, La navigation lagunaire. 2000 ans de secrets révélés par le musée d’archéologie de Catalogne, Henri Prades Museum, Lattes, France An unexpectedly excellent exhibition on Roman ships at the museum of Lattes in the summer of 2018 was extremely educational. Not only were there some fascinating survivors of…
The Archaeological Site of Lattara and the Henri Prades Museum, Site archéologique Lattara – musée Henri Prades, Lattes, France South of Montpellier, near the beaches at Pérols, is a little Roman site. It is not terribly exciting for the average visitor – there are grids of stones, but not much that is visually engaging. However, it’s been terribly important for…
…continued from Part Two… This part of my post will basically cobble together the objects from the top three floors. The display cases look at specific sites, which could be very interesting. However, the galleries were being re-done when I visited, so it made for quite a depressing journey, past empty cases and with badly labelled objects. Knowing that…
…continued from Part One… Continuing on the first/ground floor, is a neat little exhibition room which is designed to give you an overview of the main periods of Sardinian history from the Nuragic to the Medieval world. There is a certain amount of overlap with some of what was covered in the previous gallery, and there is more overlap from…
National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari, Cagliari, Sardinia When planning my trip to Cagliari, the first thing I knew I really needed to do was visit the Archaeology Museum. It would have been necessary anyway, but what made it sound particularly interesting was the fact that the museum had objects from an ancient native Sardinian culture.…
Church of St Eulalia, Chiesa di Sant’ Eulalia, Cagliari, Sardinia Surprisingly, there isn’t much to the Church of St Eulalia. Its origins go back to 1365, when the Catalan-Aragonese dedicated it to Barcelona’s patron saint. The building underwent many changes over the centuries, and then in the 1990s the floor was torn up because they had a damp problem. In…
Museum of the Treasury of St Eulalia, Museo del Tesoro Sant’Eulalia, Cagliari, Sardinia One of the most interesting things about visiting Cagliari, for me, was the fact that a lot of the precious objects created for churches are still in, or very close to, those churches. This made visiting their associated museums quite fascinating, in that you are getting to…
Archaeological Area, Area archeologica, Cagliari, Sardinia The St Eulalia complex in the medieval district of Marina in Cagliari, is a curiosity. There is a church round the back and there is a treasury upstairs from the archaeology site. The whole complex is referred to as MUTSEU. The archaeological area of St Eulalia doesn’t just date from one period – it spans…