Villa Frigerj is a nineteenth-century villa in Chieti, on via Guido Costanzi, which houses the National Archaeological Museum of Abruzzo. It was built from around 1830 for Baron Ferrante Frigerj, to a design by the architect Enrico Riccio, in neoclassical style with Art Nouveau elements added later. It stands outside the old walls, near Porta Sant'Andrea, on land that had belonged to the monastery of Sant'Andrea of the Observant friars.
What to see
In 1861 the villa was the first home of the Technical Commercial Institute; after the Second World War it passed from the town to the State and in 1959, at the wish of the superintendent Valerio Cianfarani, it became the seat of the National Archaeological Museum, opened in the presence of the President of the Republic Giovanni Gronchi. From 1960 it also housed the first faculties of the «Gabriele d'Annunzio» University. After the restructuring of 1984, the museum was redisplayed in 2011 to a design by Mimmo Paladino, who created a room devoted to the Warrior of Capestrano.
The building is rectangular, on two floors, with a central turret-like attic; the ground floor is faced with smooth rustication, with an arched portal, and on the upper floor the windows have triangular pediments. Inside, a large barrel-vaulted hall acts as a corridor, a room on the right displays grave goods, and a monumental staircase leads to the second floor, under a coffered domed ceiling. Around it stretches the public garden, created by the baron himself from 1853, laid out on terraces with Italian gardens, a pond with a statue of Neptune, the monumental cast-iron fountain and the war memorial by Pietro Canonica, unveiled in 1924.
Visiting
Museum hours and tickets should be checked on the website of the National Archaeological Museum of Abruzzo; the park is the town's public garden.
Our editors' tip
In the park, among the paths and the busts of famous people from Chieti, look for the belvedere: it faces the Maiella.
