The museum is in a building dating from the Swabian period which was transformed and enlarged in the 15th c. by the Bellomo family - one of the most powerful in Syracuse - which lived there at the time.

In 1725 Palazzo Bellomo was sold to the St Benedict Monastery and joined to the nearby Palazzo Parisio, becoming a single complex of buildings. It was completely restored and inaugurated as a gallery in 1948. During the 1970s it was again refurbished and acquired its present-day appearance.
 
The Gallery illustrates the development of painting and decorative art in Syracuse and south-east Sicily.
 
The medieval and modern art collections dating from the Byzantine period to the 18th c. were brought to their more appropriate position in Palazzo Bellomo from Syracuse Archaeological Museum in 1940.
The collections consist partly of art treasures from deconsecrated churches and convents (many were suppressed in 1866) in south-east Sicily, and partly of acquisitions and bequests.
 
The arrangement is strictly chronological, and is on two floors.
 
Ground floor

Rooms 1-4 sculptures from the Byzantine period to the 16th c.; coaches of the 18th and 19th c. Room 3 sculptures of the Gagini family and G. B. Mazzolo

First floor

Rooms 5-9 Picture gallery
Room 6 polyptychs of the 15th c. and The Annunciation by Antonello da Messina
Rooms 10-18 section of decorative art (silver, cribs, church ornaments, furniture, jewels, pottery)
Room 12: cribs; Room 15: pottery

COST

EUR2.50.

OPEN

Tues.-Sat. 9-6:30, Sun. 9-2:30.