Museo Civico Ala Ponzone - Pinacoteca museo stradivariano

The main part of the Ala Ponzone City Museum was created thanks to a donation by the marquis Ala Ponzone (1842) and has been enriched with works from former churches and successive legacies. Since 1928 it has been based in Palazzo Affaitati, an example of 16th century Cremonese architecture. The picture gallery is currently being prepared, with works by mainly Cremona artists from the 15th to the 20th centuries but there are also works by famous painters such as Caravaggio and Arcimboldi. The Stradivari Museum, housed in the noble, eighteenth-century rooms of the Palazzo Affaitati, is organised in three sections: - an itinerary that explains the construction of a contralto viola in accordance with the tradition of the classical Cremonese school; the equipment for the contralto viola of 1690 was chosen for this first section, as it is one of the most complete sets among those kept within the museum. The group of instruments which represents mainly Italian violin makers active from the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century; - the Salabue-Fiorini Collection, displayed in sixteen showcases containing 710 artefacts, originating from the workshop of Antonio Stradivari. The itinerary has also been studied and organised for the blind and those with poor eyesight.