Come in
Tuesday to Sunday, ten until six, and until nine on Thursdays. Nine minutes on foot from the station, flat the whole way. There is no cloakroom charge and never has been.
Hours
Last entry 45 minutes before closing. Closed 1 January, 15 August and 25 December. The study room opens on Wednesdays only, 10.00 to 13.00, by letter.
We do not sell a skip-the-queue ticket
There is rarely a queue. If there is one it is on the first Sunday, between eleven and one, and it moves in about ten minutes. Buy at the desk, pay by card or cash, keep the stub and you can come back the same day.
What is in the building besides the art
What is hard here, said plainly
The building is from 1894 and the entrance has four steps. The ramp is on the Via Cavour side, 30 metres left of the main door, and it is signed. The lift reaches all three floors and takes a 70 × 120 cm chair. Sale I, II and VI are kept dark for the mosaics and textiles. Sala XII is shut until October while we rewire it. Two folding stools live in every room; take one.
Asked at the desk most days
Can I take photographs?
Yes, without flash and without a tripod, everywhere except Sala VI, where the light meter is calibrated and a phone torch ruins a reading. Loans from other collections sometimes carry a no-photography condition; where they do, the label says so.
Is there parking?
Not ours. The nearest is the covered car park on Via Cavour, 200 metres, €1.60 an hour. Two blue-badge bays sit directly outside the ramp entrance and are not metered.
How long does it take to see everything?
Forty minutes at a walk, two hours if you read the labels, and about four if you sit down in Sala II, which is what we would do.
Can I bring a school group?
Yes, free for state schools in Emilia-Romagna, €2 a head otherwise, one adult per eight children. Write four weeks ahead; we take two groups a morning and no more, because Sala IX holds thirty people before it stops being worth standing in.
Do you have a restaurant?
No. Caffè Serpi on the ground floor does coffee, four sandwiches and one soup, and shuts at 17.30. There are eleven better places to eat within five minutes and the desk will tell you which.
Why is Sala XII shut?
The 1971 wiring behind the picture rail failed its inspection in February. Rewiring takes until October. The eleven works that hang there are in Sala VIII in the meantime, closer together than we would like.
Can I touch anything?
Three things, all in Sala IV and all marked: a bronze cast of the Masenghi head, a loom-woven sample of the tapestry, and a tray of tesserae from the dig spoil. Everything else, please stand 40 cm back.
Thursday is the quiet one
Between seven and nine on a Thursday there are usually fewer than forty people in the whole building, and the lights in Sala IX are at their best.