Museo del costume farnesiano

Established in 1998, the Museum is housed on the piano nobile and last floor of Palazzo Farnese, which was renovated between 1970 and 1980. Commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro – the future Pope Paul III – from Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in 1517, Palazzo Farnese di Gradoli represents one of the first examples of humanistic residence, evidence of the new aristocratic ethic of living during the Renaissance. It is a particular typological model of a stately home, in which architectural articulation and the decorative ensemble of frescoes, terracotta floors and coffered wooden ceilings represent the apotheosis of a new existentialistic philosophy. The decorative system is not an end in itself but has symbolic and sapiential meanings that exalt the Farnese family. The sophisticated decoration of the building, mostly restored to complete use, is the result of the project by the great master of Raphaelesque culture very similar to the ways of Baldassarre Peruzzi. The Museum also exhibits a rich collection of ceramics from the excavations of the building itself and reproductions of costumes of the Renaissance and Baroque period, a copy of those worn by the members of the Farnese family in the various paintings depicting their family splendour.