A dip into the history and art

Walk for:

5 km

Difficulty:

medium

Search Gallery

More than one tear of searing pain has soaked the stained letters and the faded flags. However, the memory of the war does not fade, it remains in the mind of Cagliari’s population. Memories of this harsh period, handed down by the families, are now reunited in the exhibition space Search, opened in 2008 and part of the Civic Museums network. Housed in the basement of the Bacaredda Palace, the City Hall, it has been completely renovated and houses temporary exhibitions. Ongoing until January 2nd 2016 is "Sa Gherra Manna-Memories of the Great War", a collection of relics and memories of families from Cagliari that revives, a hundred years after its start, the drama of the WWI. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of screenings of historical theme films.

Saint Eulalia Museum

From severe and bare Roman architecture to the triumph of ecclesiastical wealth, visiting the Museum of Sant’Eulalia is an immersion into contrasts. It has recently been reopened after restoration work. It is located next door to the parish church of the same name, accessible from Vico del Collegio (lane).

The first impact is a ladder placed in the entrance hall that leads to the archaeological area below, which covers about 200 square meters and includes a Roman road, walkable on 13 meters.

The main exhibit, on the other hand, collects hundreds of silver artefacts, paintings, sacred vestments and fabrics, old documents, like the collection of papal bulls, and sculptures from the churches of Sant’Eulalia, Santo Sepolcro and Santa Lucia, which is now in ruins.

Email: mutseu@tiscali.it

Citadel of Museums

Time is short, too short, and even to decide whether to visit quickly the integrity or thoroughly some sections of the Citadel of Museums’ collections. It houses the greatest artistic and archaeological heritage of Sardinia. Better to silence the confusion, take the easy road and pass through the great bronze portal that, during Savoy period, introduced at the Royal Arsenal, and begin: from history, preserved from the beginning in the National Archaeological Museum; to the figurative art, in the National Art Gallery; to an alternative route going through the Collection of Anatomical Wax Collection "Clemente Susini", the Ethnographic Museum Collection “Luigi Cocco” and the Siamese Art Museum "Stefano Cardu".

Opening hours:

From Tuesday to Sunday: 9 am to 8.00 pm
Closed on Monday

Archaeological Museum

The gaze, lost in the void left by the battles buried by the time, inspires awe. The body, powerful, evokes fierce fighting in the sand, grinding of blades and shields. The Giants, colossus found in the archaeological site of Mont'e Prama in Oristano, are the highlight of the Archaeological Museum, the most important of Sardinia. It is a journey back through the history of Sardinia, from the Prenuragic Ages to the Middle Ages, divided into four floors. The first, the richest of finds, houses a didactic presentation on the ancient cultures in Sardinia, starting from the Neolithic to the Phoenician, Punic and Roman, who all left an indelible mark in local history. The other three are devoted to the illustration of the different territorial sectors, with the exposition of the material found in the most important archaeological sites.

Related links: www.archeocaor.beniculturali.it

Anatomical Wax Collection "Clemente Susini"

The smell of formalin still seems to hang in the air. It gives a noir touch, that little heartbeat accompanying the lessons on human anatomy. Clemente Susini (1754-1814), the great wax modeller, has realized his collection in the laboratory of wax modelling of the Museum La Specola of Florence. The Viceroy Carlo Felice has purchased the 23 anatomical models in wax, molded between 1803 and 1805, for the Museum of Antiquities and Natural History, housed in the Viceroy’s Palace of Cagliari. It was then transferred in 1991 to the pentagonal room. They are made of polychrome wax, obtained from plaster casts of anatomical remains. They meticulously reproduce, in section, all the different parts of the human body, both male and female.

Ethnographic Museum

Two thousand pieces reconstruct the daily life of the Sardinian population; a visit at the Ethnographic Museum is like travelling in the ordinariness, made of work, with its popular culture artefacts, dating back from the late XIX century up to the beginning of the XX and collected by the magistrate Luigi Cocco since the 1920s. Textiles of the southern tradition and jewellery (mostly silver) make up the bulk of the collection, complemented by furniture, tools and carvings.

Siamese Art Museum

From Sardinia to Asia, without making a step. The Siamese Art Museum represents a journey in Eastern cultures and the enthusiasm that the collector Stephen Cardu put in a lifetime of collecting. It became a collection in 1914, when it was donated to the city, with its artworks of Asian origins and cultures. It is, however, the preponderance of the specimens from Siam, to characterize and to name it. It deploys artefacts from the religious to the everyday items in order to offer an insight into the life and the handicraft production of the Asian countries. Among the most valuable sections is the one dedicated to porcelain, numismatics and weapons.

Phone number: +39 070651888

E-mail: visite@galleriacomunalecagliari.it

Website: www.museicivicicagliari.it

Opening hours:

Winter: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Summer (from June 15th to September 15th): 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Closed on Mondays.

N.B. the ticket office closes 30 minutes before the closing of the museum.

Services: The museum can ensure easy access for the handicapped (entrance Canelles and Duomo Streets), lift, toilets and air conditioning.

Prices:

Adult: 2 €

Student under 26 years old: 1 €

Children under 6 years old, disabled and adults over 65 years old: Free

Full visit: 8 € (Siamese Art Museum + Old City Hall + Municipal Art Gallery)

Full visit for student under 26 years old: 4 €

National Art Gallery

Gold embroidery and brush strokes like liquid gems are performed with skill and devotion. It has to be enjoyed in silence, detail after detail, predellas after pinnacles; the retables are in fact the heart of the National Art Gallery and the legacy of a lively production that had its epicentre in the Cavaro’s local shop and in the school of Stampace.

The first core of the exhibition, made following the suppression of religious orders, was supplemented by subsequent donations. These include an ethnographic collection (fabrics, Sardinian jewels, furniture, ceramics and weapons), rotatively exhibited, and a bronze fowl form aquamanile, dating back to the XII century, alike a "twin" specimen of the Louvre Museum.

The entire assets of the gallery amounted to 1,272 pieces, including a hundred of paintings.

Phone number: 07060518245

Website: www.pinacoteca.cagliari.beniculturali.it

Collections and permanent exhibitions, Art Galleries, Museums

Opening hours:

From Tuesday to Sunday: 9 a.m. to 7:15 p.m.

Closed on Mondays.

Prices:

Adults: € 5.00

Children under 26 years old: € 2.50

Municipal Gallery of Modern Art

Its soft colour façade, its clean and elegant lines and the placid Public Garden Garden accompanying visitors conceal a stormy past. Born as a powder keg, the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art began his metamorphosis into an art gallery at the beginning of the 1930s, designed by the architect Umberto Badas. It is permanent home of the two most important art collections of the city: the Ingrao Collection, consisting of the works of the great Italian masters of the 1900s; and the Sardinian Artists Collection. It is an immersion in the art that students from Cagliari complete when studying in the annexe, the specialized Ingrao library.

Within the Sardinian Artists Collection, is available the tour SeSaMoNet for blind/visually impaired visitors.

Phone number: +39 070.677.7598

Opening hours:

Open every day except on Tuesdays

from September 15th to June 14th: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

from June 15th to September 14th: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Prices:

Adult: € 6.00

Students and teachers with a guided tour: € 2.50

Students (up to 26 years of age): € 2.50

Activities art-school: € 6.00

Organized groups, training schools, and similar to a number not less than 15 people: € 2.50

Project laboratory lesson per student: € 4.00

Laboratory annual (eight meetings): € 20.00

Children between 15 and 29 in possession of "Youth Cards": € 2.50

Full visit: 8 € (Siamese Art Museum + Old City Hall + Municipal Art Gallery)

Full visit for student under 26 years old: 4 €

Over 65, children under 6 years old, physical disabilities and / or mental disability and carers: free

Free during the museum’s promotional and experimental activities