Museo Lapidario, Verona

Il Lapidario, one of the oldest public museums in Europe, was established in 1714, thanks to the work of the Marquis Scipione Maffei, a well-known man of culture, of Veronese origin. The origin nucleus of the museum can be found in the small space between the old walls that join Piazza Bra with Castelvecchio, made up of thirty of the Nichesola family's roman marbles collected by the philharmonic academy and displayed in the courtyard opposite the building. Subsequently, Maffei, after obtaining permission from the Venetian state, increased the collection to over two hundred valuable marble statues. It is widely believed that the Marquis was not averse to robbing a few tombs in order to decorate the rooms of the museum.