Among the most ancient European public museums, the Lapidarium (Greek, Etruscan, Paleo-Venetian and Roman epigraphic collection, but also Arab) was established in 1745 thanks above all to the passionate collection of Scipione Maffei, a distinguished man of Veronese culture. It was built in the place between the ancient walls that connected Piazza Bra and Castelvecchio. The place was conceived from the beginning as an access garden to the theater of the Philharmonic Academy. Since 1612, the Philharmonic Academy had bought 28 epigraphs and subsequently exhibited them in the courtyard in front of the building. The museum arrangement is due to Scipione Maffei himself; the Museum was then purchased by the Municipality in 1883 and was rearranged according to modern criteria in 1982. The epigraphic material and the reliefs are distributed according to chronological sections in the courtyard which leads to the foyer of the Philharmonic theater, in the basement and in two upper rooms. The rearrangement, completed in 1982, by Lanfranco Franzoni, based on a project by the architect Arrigo Rudi, highlighted, among other things, the neoclassical pronaos, the main entrance to the Philharmonic Theater through the Sala Maffeiana. From the internal rooms you can access the Scaligero walkway above the Portoni della Brà.