The Musei Civici di Pavia, in the homonymous Lombard city, have been housed since the post-World War II period in the Castello Visconteo, built by Galeazzo II Visconti between 1360 and 1365. 

The visit route of the Musei Civici takes place inside rooms that still preserve precious frescoes from the Visconti and Sforza ages. Although deprived of the northern wing with which the ducal residence overlooked the Park, thus connecting to the Certosa, the Castle maintains intact the suggestive harmony of the masterpiece, among the most distinguished of late Gothic Lombard architecture.

The Musei Civici di Pavia preserve a heritage of art and history particularly linked to the city and its territory, with unique masterpieces such as pieces of Lombard goldsmithing, the plutei of Santa Maria Teodote, the 12th-century mosaic pavements, the wooden model of the Cathedral, but also paintings by famous artists such as Gentile da Fabriano, Antonello da Messina, Giovanni Bellini, Vincenzo Foppa, Ambrogio Bergognone, Hayez, Federico Faruffini, Zandomeneghi, and so on.

The collections are divided into three floors and include the archaeological and Lombard section, the Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance section, the Pinacoteca Malaspina with works from the 14th to the 16th century and that of the 17th and 18th centuries, the 19th-century Painting Gallery, the Civic School of Painting, the Morone Collection, the Pavia Landscapes of the 20th century, the 20th/21st-century Section; the Risorgimento Museum, the First World War Room, the modern sculpture and Plaster Cast Gallery, the Collector's Room, the one dedicated to the Battle of Pavia and the Visconti Library, as well as spaces for temporary exhibitions in the Rivellino room and in the Stables.