Hotels near Museo Civico Medievale

The Museo Civico Medievale (Via Manzoni 4, 40121) holds the most important medieval collection in Bologna and one of the finest in northern Italy, housed in the Gothic Palazzo Ghisilardi-Fava. The collection covers the 13th to 16th centuries with particular strength in bronze and marble funerary monuments, ecclesiastical metalwork, and the carved tomb slabs of the Glossatori - the legal scholars of the early university who are commemorated in elaborate Gothic marble sarcophagi that originally stood outside the Archiginnasio.

Entry is 6 EUR and frequently covered by the Bologna Welcome Card. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 AM to 6:30 PM. It's consistently less crowded than the Archiginnasio but gives better historical context for the medieval city.

Pro Tip: The first floor of the museum has a bronze effigy of Pope Gregory XIII - a Bolognese native who reformed the calendar in 1582 (the Gregorian calendar is named for him). The room containing the Glossatori tomb monuments on the ground floor is one of the most atmospheric in Bologna, with 13th-century carved portraits of scholars above their stone sarcophagi.