Commissioned by the wealthy Lavezzola family between 1530 and 1550 to the brilliant architect Michele Sanmicheli, it later became the property of the Pompei family and in 1833 Count Alessandro Pompei donated it to the Municipality of Verona to host exhibitions, art collections, and scientific collections of considerable prestige and importance for the city. The original core of the palace was expanded, starting from 1858, with the progressive annexation of adjacent spaces and houses.
In the spacious rooms of the Palace, fourteen exhibition halls, the library, laboratories, collection deposits, and the offices of the Museum are now housed.
The Civic Museum of Natural History of Verona hosts scientific sections dedicated to the study of minerals and rocks, paleontology, and zoology. The prehistoric and botanical sections are housed in the Command Building of the Austrian Arsenal of Verona.
The scientific material collected by the Museum’s researchers and many naturalists over nearly five centuries is now meticulously prepared and cataloged, studied, and then preserved in the collections or displayed to the public in the rooms.
The Museum therefore plays a central and decisive role in scientific research and in the publication of essays and popular science texts. The educational and communication section is also very active, aiming to disseminate naturalistic culture among various groups of the public (schools, adults, families, associations, etc.).
A section of the Civic Museum of Natural History of Verona is dedicated to the fossils of Bolca: the most extraordinary testimony of Earth’s evolution imprinted in rock as on the pages of a book. From the locality of Bolca on the Lessini Mountains, 50 km from Verona, come fossil specimens of over 250 animal species and 200 plant species, a fascinating snapshot of life on Earth 50 million years ago.
