Museo Francesco Borgogna

The Borgogna Museum opened to the public in 1908, by the testamentary will of its founder, the lawyer, collector and philanthropist Antonio Borgogna (1822-1906), a passionate traveller and refined art connoisseur.

The neoclassical building, once the private residence of Burgundy himself, was born with the imprint of a house-museum, characterised by eclectic taste. Over the years it has undergone several extensions and today houses over 800 works on three floors. The collection includes paintings, sculptures, ceramics, micromosaics, semi-precious stone commissions, ornamental objects and furniture, dating from the 15th to the 19th century, the fruit of the founder's collecting passion. These are complemented by Renaissance altarpieces and torn wall paintings from the Institute of Fine Arts and numerous churches in the area, signed by artists such as Eusebio Ferrari, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Defendente Ferrari, Gerolamo Giovenone and Bernardino Lanino.

The exhibition route takes the visitor from the evocative atmosphere of the house-museum, rich in decorative arts, to the encounter with significant episodes of Italian and foreign painting and sculpture, with Flemish and Dutch works from the 17th and 19th centuries. The rooms host, side by side, intense religious subjects and idyllic landscapes, compositions in the style of Caravaggio and canvases with a classicist air, up to Angelo Morbelli's famous Divisionist masterpiece, For eighty cents! (1895-97), which depicts rice-workers at work in the rice fields.

The Borgogna Museum is today a lively and dynamic place, to be discovered through a rich calendar of initiatives designed for all kinds of audiences. Thanks to private donations, rearrangements and major restoration work, also made possible by visitors' contributions through the 5×1000 and Art Bonus, the Museum continues to renew itself, preserving its identity and value.

It is part of the MUVV network - Museums of Vercelli and Varallo.