This is a must on our tour of Valparaiso. Palacio Baburizza was built in 1916 on the Cerro Alegre by Italian architects Arnaldo Barison and Renato Schiavon for the Zanelli family. It is named after its second owner, Croatian businessman Pascual Baburizza, who acquired the mansion in 1925.



This large house became the headquarters of the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts of Valparaiso in 1971 and eight years later it was declared a Historical Monument. This museum watches over the care, protection and dissemination of the important pictorial collection that the city of Valparaíso has been gathering since 1895, and which stands out among the four most important art collections in Chile.


The collection is made up of works by great national artists, such as: Juan Francisco González, Pedro Lira, Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma and Nemesio Antúnez, to name a few. Among these also some Foreign Precursors stand out, such as: Thomas Jacques Somerscales, Johan Moritz Rugendas, Giovanni Mochi and Desiree Chassin Trubert.