Palaces to visit Nice

This hotel is the most luxurious and best preserved witness of the baroque residences of the nobility and bourgeoisie. Property of the Comtes Lascaris-Vintimille, it was built at the end of the sixteenth century by Jean-Paul Lascaris de Castellar, great master of the order of the Knights of Malta with the help of his nephew Jean-Baptiste. In Genois style, this building is built around two inner courtyards. A very beautiful staircase, real well of light, gives access to the first floor where the weapons of the Lascaris are proudly trashed: a bicephal eagle adorned with a cross of Malta. Original paintings date from the seventeenth century while baroque elements were added in the eighteenth century. The apartments are decorated with vaulted vaults and the ceilings are decorated with frescoes with mythological subjects, including a magnificent Phaéton Fall. During your visit, do not miss the furniture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Flemish tapestries, the apothicecerie founded in 1738 of roquaille style, the complete collection of vases, violes and chevettes as well as the regional collections of art and popular traditions. In 1942, the City of Nice bought the building: fully restored and classified as Historic Monument in 1946, the Lascaris Palace became the Musée de la Musique de Nice and the second of France by the importance of its collection, which gathered around 500 old European pieces from the saqueboute of Schnitzer (1581) to Grafton saxophone (1960). This collection also features many instruments manufactured before 1800: Baroque guitars, luths, violes and Denner's scarcity flute.