The Siracusa art museum

A detail from the Seppellimento di Santa Lucia (1608) by Caravaggio

The Museo Regionale di Arte Medioevale e Moderna in Siracusa (Syracuse), Sicily, has some fine Renaissance and baroque works by Antonello da Messina, Caravaggio, and Domenico Gagini houses in the Palazzo Bellomo

The Annunciation by Antonello da Messina (1474).The Palazzo Bellomo, just up Via Capodieci at Via Roma, was built between the 13th and 15th centuries.

It features a Catalan-Gothic staircase and courtyard, and is home to the Galleria Regionale di Arte Medioevale e Moderna.

The museum's collections

Neither of its two stellar works are in great shape, physically.

Antonello da Messina's highly ruinous but still exquisitely painted Annunciation (1474) is the star of the show (pictured to the left).

The Deposition of St. Lucy by Caravaggio (1608).Also important is Caravaggio's faded, but still moody, Deposition of Santa Lucia (1608; pictured to the right).

Other standouts include medieval and Renaissance sculptures on the ground floor—among which a Madonna by Domenico Gagini—and a comical early–17th century painting of angels ferrying the Madonna's house across the sea to Loreto with baby Jesus perched on the roof.

A detail from Antonello da Messina's Annunciation.The collections are rounded out by 18th- and 19th-century carriages, livery, and furnishings, and ceramics, including a 15th-century Spanish/Moorish faience plate patterned in metallic reddish gold.

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