Museo Baroffio

The Baroffio Museum and Shrine of Sacro Monte above Varese was reopened in December 2001, after a nearly decade-long closure, thanks to the Paul VI Foundation for Sacro Monte.

It is one of Lombardy's oldest museums; it was, in fact, originally inaugurated in August 1900 in premises attached to the Shrine of Sacro Monte di Varese. The building in which the collection is currently on display was inaugurated in 1936 thanks to the bequests of Baron Giuseppe Baroffio dall'Aglio, after whom the museum is named, with a layout designed by Lodovico Pogliaghi.

The historical-artistic heritage linked to Santa Maria del Monte, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003, is joined by the collection of Baron Giuseppe Baroffio Dall'Aglio and the 20th-century sacred art section donated by Monsignor Pasquale Macchi, archpriest of the shrine and former secretary to Pope Paul VI.

A visit to the museum allows you to dive into the history of Sacro Monte di Varese, with some masterpieces of Lombard art, such as the sculpture depicting the Madonna and Child by Domenico and Lanfranco da Ligurno, the miniatures by Cristoforo de' Predis or the textiles donated by Ludovico il Moro, and at the same time to fly far away, in the wake of the many Flemish and Dutch works or to some of the protagonists of 20th-century Italian and European art, such as Guttuso, Sironi, Bodini, Matisse and Rouault.

The museum kept a preparatory study of Leonardo da Vinci's Bacchus, stolen in 1974.