For art and historical culture enthusiasts in general, museums are truly enchanted places. In today’s article, we want to focus on the museums in Agrigento, their opening hours, and the tickets available for visiting them. Let’s start with one of Agrigento’s most important museums: the Regional Archaeological Museum.
Located between the modern city and the Valley of the Temples, the Regional Archaeological Museum houses real treasures. The museum’s headquarters, built in the 1960s, result from the fusion of new buildings specifically designed for the museum and the restored structures of the 14th-century Convent of S. Nicola, which houses the library, conference hall, and auditorium.
The museum illustrates the history of ancient Agrigento and the surrounding territory, from prehistory to the Hellenization phase. Its 18 rooms contain numerous interesting artifacts from Agrigento and its surroundings, with the oldest core of the collections coming from the Civic Museum. Other materials come from the archaeological museums of Palermo and Syracuse, although the most important part of all the collections consists of materials found during excavations conducted by the Agrigento Superintendence. The museum also possesses a vast collection of Attic vases, including the famous Dionysus crater, and visitors can also see the famous marble statue of Ephebus, an athlete who lived in the 5th century AD.
Which museums in Agrigento should not be missed? Here’s everything
When talking about Agrigento, one cannot ignore the House of Luigi Pirandello, which is a true place of the heart. Recently re-staged, the Casa Museo now houses a large part of the material heritage belonging to the great playwright and his family: the structure is equipped with a very functional and extensive communication apparatus.
Built at the end of the 18th century between Agrigento and Porto Empedocle, the house hosted the Pirandello family from 1867 when they moved there to escape a violent cholera epidemic. It was here that Luigi was born, and he spent his childhood and early youth before leaving his beloved Sicily to continue his studies in Rome.
The Casa Museo was declared a national monument in 1949 and was subsequently purchased by the Sicilian Region, which oversaw its restoration and arrangement, making it public to all visitors today. The museum is open from Monday to Sunday from 9:00 am to 7:30 pm, with the last entry allowed 30 minutes before closing.
Lastly, we have the Collegio dei Filippini, built in 1703 from a design by Simone Mancuso. It’s an irregularly shaped building that housed the convent of the Filipino Fathers from the first half of the 18th century until 1886 when religious corporations were suppressed.
In the late 20th century, the college became home to a Technical Institute and an elementary school, and subsequently, in addition to previous restoration works in 1999, those in 2009 transformed it into a veritable treasure trove of the most beautiful works of art in the municipality of Agrigento. The college is open Monday to Saturday from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm and from 3:30 pm to 7:30 pm.
