Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Annecy Castle Museum came into being in 1798, when the municipal archives mentioned a first inventory of collections by the citizen Prey, who was commissioned to prepare a report. This project ended in 1842 under the impetus of the Florimontane Society, which officially founded the museum with a dual vocation: naturalist and regionalist. Originally housed in the municipal library room, it is designed to house collections of Lake Protohistoric Archaeology and Natural History, waiting for a transfer to City Hall.

In 1954, the museum was permanently installed in the château des Comtes de Genève, a 13th–12th century building combining medieval defensive architecture and Renaissance elegance. The site, abandoned in the 18th century, had served as barracks from 1742 to 1947, then sheltered precarious after the war before being bought by the city in 1953 to establish the museum. The collections are enriched with fine arts (school of the Alpine landscape), lake archaeology, alpine geology, and an observatory on alpine lakes, reflecting the museum's territorial anchor.

The museum is distinguished by a variety of themes, ranging from national archaeology (Prehistory, Gallo-Roman, Medieval) to extra-European civilizations, including specialized collections such as animation cinema (linked to the festival of Annecy) and natural sciences (botanical, mineralogy of Savoyard massifs). Its annex, the Palace of the Island, offers an urban interpretation of the city and serves as a starting point for discovery tours of the territory. Since 1987, the contemporary art collection has revolved around glass and transparency, strengthening its modern identity.

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