Fodor's Expert Review Musei di Palazzo Farnese

The eclectic city-owned museum of Piacenzan art and antiquities is housed in the vast Palazzo Farnese, a monumental palace commissioned by the ruling family that, although construction began in 1558, was never completed as planned. The highlight of the museum's collection is the tiny 2nd-century-BC Etruscan Fegato di Piacenza, a bronze tablet shaped like a fegato (liver), marked with the symbols of the gods of good and ill fortune. The collection also contains Botticelli's beautiful Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist.