Established around 1890 thanks to an initiative by the historian and librarian Filippo Raffaelli, the art gallery was initially housed in the former Palazzo degli Studi, the site of today’s civic library. It housed paintings and art objects from the religious buildings that had been suppressed after the Unification of Italy, along with paintings, archaeological finds, coins, epigraphs and drawings, some acquired through donations or testamentary legacies. Over time, the collection expanded with additional paintings, including those from the church of San Filippo, transferred to the art gallery between the mid-1950s and early 1980s. These include altarpieces by Rubens and Giovanni Lanfranco, a cycle of wall paintings by Andrea Boscoli, detached from the church of Santa Maria Piccinina in 1971 and an important nucleus of works formerly part of a collection owned by Fermo-born architect Giovan Battista Carducci, split up after his death in 1879. Of these, the marble Bust of Christ displayed in the Globe Rome, attributed by some to Michelangelo, is of particular importance.
