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Musée de Bastia
The Bastia museum occupies the Governors' Palace, in the heart of the citadel, place du Donjon. Its permanent route extends over nineteen rooms and brings together more than three hundred works and objects illustrating more than seven centuries of the history of the city and of Corsica.
The visit follows four themes: the birth and growth of a Corsican town, the town as capital and centre of power, a cultural hearth, and the great collections. You see archaeological objects, paintings, painted sea chests, religious statues and part of the famous collection of Cardinal Fesch.
The institution goes back to the Société des sciences historiques et naturelles de la Corse, which from the end of the nineteenth century brought together geological, mineralogical and archaeological collections. The museum was inaugurated in 1908, then moved in 1922 to a former chapel. Looted during the Second World War, its collections were only partly recovered. The Palace was ceded to the city by the State in 1990. Temporary exhibitions complete the permanent route.
