The main part of the Ala Ponzone City Museum was created thanks to a donation by the marquis Ala Ponzone (1842) and has been enriched with works from former churches and successive legacies.Since 1928 it has been based in Palazzo Affaitati;an example of 16th century Cremonese architecture.The picture gallery is currently being prepared;with works by mainly Cremona artists from the 15th to the 20th centuries but there are also works by famous painters such as Caravaggio and Arcimboldi.There are also oriental pottery;enamel and ivory objects.Special areas have been created for the most important cultural events of the town.The Stradivari Museum;housed in the noble;eighteenth-century rooms of the Palazzo Affaitati;is organised in three sections:
- an itinerary that explains the construction of a contralto viola in accordance with the tradition of the classical Cremonese school;the equipment for the contralto viola of 1690 was chosen for this first section;as it is one of the most complete sets among those kept within the museum;the itinerary has also been studied and organised for the blind and those with poor eyesight;
- the group of instruments which represents mainly Italian violin makers active from the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century;
- the Salabue-Fiorini Collection;displayed in sixteen showcases containing 710 artefacts;originating from the workshop of Antonio Stradivari.