Known as the "palace of the giants" for the two large atlantes looming over those who enter, the Museo Civico d’Arte Industriale e Galleria Davia Bargellini is curious both outside and inside.

In the city famous for its arcades, it is housed in a seventeenth-century building that lacks them. A fully visible facade was indeed a privilege reserved only for the most illustrious families of the city, such as the Bargellini.

A second scenic effect is offered even before entering through the main staircase leading to the noble floor.

Inside, the museum is a unique time machine.

Visitors step into an apartment of eighteenth-century Bologna, among furniture, furnishings, and rare objects. Among the most peculiar items, there is an entire puppet theater and what appears to be a dollhouse, but is actually a fully furnished miniature private house from the eighteenth century.

On the walls, the painting gallery of the Bargellini family, a rare example of an intact private collection. Alongside them, the works of the great protagonists of Bolognese Trecento who influenced late medieval European painting: among others, the panel of the Madonna dei Denti by Vitale da Bologna, the Pietà by Simone dei Crocefissi, and the Madonna with Child by Cristoforo da Bologna.

Sculpture is present in the form of terracotta nativity figures, a material widely used because it was abundant in the "red" Bologna.

Another important nucleus of the museum is the collection of applied art objects, "curiosities of old Bologna" from various origins: wrought irons, ornamental bronzes, keys, glasses, porcelains from the most important European manufactures, and even a late eighteenth-century carriage all painted and gilded.