Porta Padova – Piazza Trieste, 15 – Montagnana (PD)
Cultural Service Office – 0429 81247/1 – cultura@comune.montagnana.pd.it
Information and Ticket Office:
Tourist Office Information IAT – Piazza Trieste, 15 – 0429 81320
ufficicioturistico@comune.montagnana.pd.it
Civic Museum “A. Giacomelli” OPENINGS
Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays: single turn of visita t 11.00 am
Summertime
Saturdays: turns of visit at 10.30am, 11.30am, 4.00pm, 5.00pm, 6.00pm
Sundays and Holidays: turns of visit at 11.00am, 12.00am, 4.00pm, 5.00pm, 6.00pm
Wintertime
Saturdays: turns of visit at 10.30am, 11.30am, 3.00pm, 4.00pm, 5.00pm
Sundays and Holidays: turns of visit at 11.00am, 12.00am, 3.00pm, 4.00pm, 5.00pm
Closed: Mondays, Tuesdays, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day
Ticket price (guided tour included):
Full-price ticket: €3,00
Reduced-price ticket: €1,80 (for children from 7 to 16 years of age and groups of at least 10 people, except for kids till 6 years of age and residents in the Municipality of Montagnana, on the last Saturday of every month)
Ancillary service: elevator, toilette, guided tours, educational workshop (bookshop, turistic material, information and tourist reception)
All the rooms are accessible to people with disabilities as well and some of them are endowed with braille panels.
Ezzelino’s Tower OPENINGS
Summertime
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays: 9.30am-12.30pm and 4.00pm – 7.00pm
Saturdays: 9.30am – 7.00pm
Sundays and holidays: 10.00am – 7.00pm
Wintertime
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays: 9.30am-12.30pm and 3.00pm – 6.00pm
Saturdays: 9.30am – 6.00pm
Sundays and holidays: 10.00am – 6.00pm
Closed: Mondays, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day
Ticket fee:
€1,80 (single rate)
St. Zeno’s Castle, the most ancient complex among the medieval fortifications in Montagnana, after the 1996 renovation, preserves the historical memory of the city and houses some of its most prestigious cultural institutions.
The Civic Museum is dedicated to the memory of the well-known montagnanese citizen Antonio Giacomelli, honorary inspector of the Archeologic Superintendence. Great connoisseur of the history of our territory, the institution of the museum was passionately promoted through his work, giving impulse to a new exposition of the collections and to their union with the finds kept in the roman lapidary, initially situated in the ancient church of St. John of Battuti.
The guided tour to the museum allows to admire the suggestive inner courtyard of the castle and have access to the archaeological, medieval and modern and musical sections.
The first room of the archaelogical section gathers materials from the Prehistoric and Protohisyoric Age and houses the most ancient finds from the Montagnanese territory, dating back to the late Neolithic and Aneolithic period (end of the 4th-3rd millennium B.C.), mainly composed of flint artefacts.
This is followed by archaeological evidence dating back to the Bronze Age, everyday objects such as mugs and bowls, flint and horn tools, and ossuary vessels containing the remains of the cremation of the deceased. However, the most important and most consistent evidence of ancient Montagnana regards the Iron Age and was found in Borgo S. Zeno. In fact, here, along the ancient course of the Adige river, there was an important protohistoric settlement that can be dated between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age (12th-8th century BC). The working of ceramics, spinning, weaving, the bronze industry, the working of bone-horn and glass paste are documented. The late Iron Age is certified by the rich equipment of a male tomb, which also attests to the Celtic custom of burying the deceased with one's weapons and tools related to the trade, such as the sword, still inserted inside its scabbard, spearheads, a shear, a cutlass and the boss of the shield.
The second room is dedicated to the Roman age, documented by numerous finds dating back to a period of time between the Augustan age and the late imperial age, pertaining to rustic villas and burial grounds, which attest to a population scattered throughout the territory, mainly along the hills rivers of Atesino origin, which intensified following the settlement of veterans returning from the battle of Azio. In fact, the remains of trachyte water pipes, the millstones for cereals and the limestone sundial may refer to rustic villas. The real heritage of the room is made up of the sepulchral monuments and the rich furnishings that accompany them, among all the great stele of the Gens Vassidia stands out, white-colored with fine bas-relief decorations, commissioned for herself and her family by the wealthy landowner Postumulena Sabina. The showcases show the rich kits that tell the story of daily life and the customs associated with the funeral ceremony: oil lamps and coins linked to the passage to the afterlife; tableware in ceramic, glass and metal for the funeral banquet; toilet tools such as mirrors and balsamariums; personal items such as brooches, bracelets, rings.
The Medieval and Modern section contains a rich collection of paintings and ceramics, found in various areas of the historic center and in some of its main buildings. The two fourteenth-century frescoes come from the inner courtyard of St. Zeno’s Castle, one depicting the Madonna enthroned between two saints, the other St. Prosdocimo and St. Giustina. Among others, the Charity by Alessandro Varotari called "il Padovanino" and a late canvas by the native Antonio Zanchi (17th and 18th centuries) are also on display. Worthy of note is the large parchment map created between 1566 and 1575 by the land surveyor and public designer Luca Zappati, to identify the properties of the Camaldolese Abbey of Saint Mary of Carceri in the Montagnana district. Tithe payments could thus be calculated, border disputes resolved, and the use of watercourses regulated. At the bottom left is the walled city of Montagnana, with its fortifications, the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and the Palladian Villa Pisani. In the showcases there is a substantial collection of ceramics from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from which one can have an overview of the production in Montagnana (as evidenced by furnace waste and other materials related to ceramic firing), and relations with the neighboring centers of Legnago, Este and Padua.
The last section of the museum, the musical one, collects stage costumes, documents, original photographs, posters, and numerous other testimonies of the two Montagnanese tenors Giovanni Martinelli (1885-1969) and Aureliano Pertile (1885-1952), donated to the Municipality by the singers’ heirs. Martinelli performed in the major theaters of Europe and the Americas; however, his legendary fame is linked to the glories of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, where he was employed continuously from 1913 to 1946. A collection of stage costumes worn by him in operas performed at the Metropolitan between 1914 and 1925 is exhibited in the room. Pertile, on the other hand, mainly owes his fame to the predilection that the famous Toscanini had towards him, who wanted him as a tenor at the Scala in Milan from 1916, where he performed until 1937, when he retired from the scene to devote himself to teaching, always in Milan, at the Conservatory and at the Scuola di Perfezionamento at the Teatro alla Scala.
The climb to Ezzelino’s Tower completes and enriches the visit to St. Zeno’s Castle allowing, from its height of 40 meters, a wonderful panoramic view on the city centre, on the surrounding countryside, stretching to the Euganean and Berici Hills. The keep is named after the infamous tyrant Ezzelino III da Romano, who set the city on fire and conquered it in 1238, starting its reconstruction from this tower with the nearby castle, around 1242.
Other than the museum rooms, the castle houses the most important cultural institutions: the Congress and Exhibition Centre accomodated in the Venetian and Austrian Rooms, the “F. Gambarin” Civic Library, the Municipal Historical Archive and the Castle Study Centre.
Nearby St. Zeno’s Castle is located the “Martinelli-Pertile” Arena which hosts theatre and dance shows, concerts and other events in summertime.