Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, Cremona


Museo Civico Ala Ponzone is a public museum and art gallery located in the 16th-century Palazzo Affaitati in Cremona, Italy.

History

The core of the original collection was donated in 1842 by Giuseppe Sigismondo Ala Ponzone and supplemented from works from suppressed ecclesiastical institutions. Among the works in the collection are a St Francis of Assisi in Meditation by Caravaggio and L'ortolano by Giuseppe Arcimboldi.
In the Sala del Platina, a section in the museum, the large Sacristy armoire or cabinet, called the Armadio del Platina, originally from the Cremona Cathedral. The Renaissance-style wood cabinet has a series of intarsia tableuxs, completed during 1477-1480 by the Giovanni Maria da Piadena, called il Platina, and restored for this museum in 2007.
The museum also houses historic musical instruments, with the nucleus being a collection donated by Carlo Alberto Carutti.