Museo Civico Amedeo Lia (Amedeo Lia Civic Museum), La Spezia

This museum of art presents works from antiquity through the 20th century that were once part of the private collection of La Spezia resident Amedeo Lia. The collection includes ancient Roman sculptures, religious works, and paintings from Titian, Tintoretto, and the Italian Futurists. Art lovers should definitely make a stop here.

It was inaugurated in 1996 to house the numerous works of art donated during his lifetime by the collector Amedeo Lia to the Municipality of La Spezia. The Amedeo Lia museum is located in via del Prione 234, in the pedestrian area of the historic city centre. The building in which the museum is located is the ancient convent complex of the Minimum Friars of San Francesco di Paola, built starting in 1616. From 1798, following the Jacobin suppressions, the convent first became a military hospital and later a civil hospital. To better perform the function of the city hospital in the following years, significant changes were made, such as the demolition of the bell tower and the construction of walls and pillars to divide the available space. Following the construction of the new hospital, it was transformed into a barracks and residence starting from 1914, and it was finally used as the seat of the Magistrate's Court and then of municipal offices in the post-war period. This led to the renovation of the nineties, necessary to make the building suitable to host the prestigious museum. Upon entering the church of the convent complex, now Room I of the museum, you immediately see the Madonna and Child (attributed to Sassetta), polychrome wood produced in Umbria in the 13th century and, in contrast to this, the female bust in gilded silver, a work from the late Middle Ages Sicilian. So ivory objects, ancient jewels, peaces, Limousin enamels, crosses and crucifixes. The miniatures occupy room II, from which you move on to the first floor entirely dedicated to the picture gallery with the exception of room III, the assessment room, where the archaeological nucleus appears orderly. The head in yellow limestone is superb and probably comes from the temple of Idalion, a Cypriot work dating back to the 5th century BC. Then in room IV, the second, third and fifteenth century panels, with very high leaders: Lippo di Benivieni, Bernardo Daddi, Pietro Lorenzetti, Bartolo di Fredi, Lippo Memmi, Paolo di Giovanni Fei, Sassetta, Sano di Pietro, Bicci di Lorenzo, Vincenzo Foppa, Benedetto Bembo, Alvise Vivarini, Colantonio. For the sixteenth century, noteworthy is the small exhibition of portraits where a presumed Self-portrait by Pontormo, the Portrait of a Gentleman by Titian and the painting by Gentile Bellini stand out, housed in room VII. The Caravaggeschi occupy a conspicuous section in room IX, dedicated to the seventeenth century, just as Venice and its great interpreters stand out among the eighteenth-century paintings in room by Bernardo Bellotto, the tremulous and blurred views of Francesco Guardi and the falling flowers of Elisabetta Marchioni. On the second floor, in room among the glass, we highlight the archaeological nucleus in room XII - in which we find the very rare small gold-banded bottle of imperial production - and the eighteenth-century one. So rock crystals, majolica, corals, tablet boxes, terracottas. In conclusion, room XIII or still lives, mainly from the seventeenth century: Fede Galizia, Cristoforo Munari, Cagnacci, the silky and sumptuous fabric that forms the backdrop to the lute of Evaristo Baschenis or his circle.

The "Amedeo Lia" museum holds Amedeo Lia's donation of his collection to the Borough of La Spezia. About 1000 works of classical, late antique, mediaeval, up to the 18th century: paintings, miniatures, bronze, copper, ivory and wooden statues, glassware, tin-glazed pottery and art objects which document the taste and culture of Italian and European art.

The Collection includes around 1000 works of great variety , from the classical era, to late antiquity, to the Middle Ages and finally to the 18th century. Paintings, miniatures, sculptures in bronze, copper, ivory, wood, glass, majolica, art objects that document the taste and culture of art in Italy and Europe are preserved. In the collection the so-called "primitives" are a true gem, with over seventy paintings by Pietro Lorenzetti, Bernardo Daddi, Lippo Memmi, Lippo di Benivieni, Lorenzo di Bicci, Barnaba da Modena, Paolo di Giovanni Fei, Sassetta; also many tempera paintings and canvases including Vincenzo The Collection includes around 1000 works of great variety , from the classical era, to late antiquity, to the Middle Ages and finally to the 18th century. Paintings, miniatures, sculptures in bronze, copper, ivory, wood, glass, majolica, art objects that document the taste and culture of art in Italy and Europe are preserved. ***PH***