Luigi Marzoli Arms Museum

In one of the oldest areas of the Castle, the Mastio Visconteo, there is the "Luigi Marzoli" Weapons Museum , inaugurated in 1988 on a set up by Carlo Scarpa, to house one of the richest European collections of armor and ancient weapons, which tell the very long Brescian gunmaking tradition, documenting the technological and artistic evolution between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Museo delle Armi di Brescia was born thanks to the acquisition of the collection of the knight of labor Luigi Marzoli, a successful entrepreneur, to whom the Museum is named. Over the course of his life, Marzoli acquired a rich collection of weapons and armor, constituting one of the most important private collections in the world. In his will he left the precious collection to the city of Brescia, which undertook to create a Museum of Weapons in the castle of the city.

The importance of the Marzoli collection, to which the weapons and armor already present in the civic collections were added, lies not only in the quantity and quality of the pieces, but also in their selection. The intent of the knight of labor was not only to collect the best and rarest objects for sale, but to testify to the important production of weapons, which has always characterized the Brescia area and, more generally, Lombardy.

For lovers of architecture and ancient art, a visit to the Museum of Arms allows you to appreciate portions of frescoes from the Visconti era that decorate the rooms of the Mastio. The coexistence of a Roman temple from the 1st century AD, of which the perimeter of the foundations and a wide staircase are also visible to create an exhibition context full of atmosphere.