Musée du Petit Palais - Louvre en Avignon

Open since 1976, the museum presents to the public collections from two distinct sources: the collection of Italian paintings assembled by the Marquis Campana in the first half of the 19th century, which constitutes an exceptional deposit from the Louvre Museum, and a collection of medieval Provençal paintings and sculptures on loan from the Calvet Foundation—a municipal public institution. The Campana Collection, comprising more than 300 works, offers visitors a wonderful journey through Italian painting and its evolution, from 13th-century works influenced by Byzantine art to the Florentine pictorial revolution and its impact: a true panorama of Italian painting, featuring both some of the period’s most famous names (Botticelli, Carpaccio) and numerous masters and workshops from nearly every region of the peninsula. But the Petit Palais is also a museum of medieval art from Avignon and Provence and features a particularly rich collection of 14th-century funerary sculptures, including the impressive tomb of Cardinal Jean de Lagrange, as well as paintings from what was, in the 15th century, one of the most innovative centers of painting in France, the Avignon School: the full richness of Avignon’s artistic scene in the 14th and 15th centuries is revealed. Housed in the former archbishops’ palace, whose construction began in the early 14th century when the papacy was established in Avignon, the Petit Palais Museum enjoys a prestigious location on the Place du Palais des Papes, at the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thanks to this exceptional location and the quality of its collections, the Petit Palais Museum can pride itself on being one of Europe’s leading museums of the Middle Ages. IH: The museum is not wheelchair accessible and is difficult for people with reduced mobility to access due to a large number of steps.