The Pasquino Crupi Palace of Culture, named after one of the greatest scholars of Southern and Calabrian culture, is another cultural treasure of Reggio Calabria. Located in a former 1930s foundling hospital and later home to the Faculty of Engineering, the building houses a rich collection of works by some of the most illustrious masters of the twentieth century, including De Chirico, Dalí, Campigli, Carrà, Ligabue, Cascella, and Fontana.

Part of the artworks on display comes from the seizure of pieces belonging to Gioacchino Compolo, who kept in his home paintings of immense value representing various artistic movements of the twentieth century—from Salvador Dalí’s surrealism, with Fuente de vida and Romeo and Juliet, to Giorgio de Chirico’s cubism, with Piazza d’Italia and The Disquieting Muses; from the naïve art of Antonio Ligabue to the twilight tones of Michele Cascella with Vase of Flowers with Orange, Farmhouse in Abruzzo, and Portofino.

There is also a section dedicated to abstract art, featuring works by Mario Sironi, Lucio Fontana, Luigi Veronesi, Agostino Bonalumi, and others. Another area is devoted to forged artworks—perfect reproductions purchased by the collector as authentic pieces. Among these are paintings attributed (falsely) to Guttuso, Mario Schifano, Salvatore Fiume, and Filippo Palizzi.

Standing out among all the works are Pablo Picasso’s Jacqueline au chapeau noir and De Chirico’s Il Trovatore, a piece often subjected to counterfeiting.

The twentieth century is not the only era represented: throughout the palace’s various rooms—each named after prominent figures from Reggio Calabria and the wider region—artworks dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries are also preserved. Notable pieces include Trinitas Terrestris with Saints by the Spanish School (18th century), Madonna and Child by an unknown Southern Italian artist, Vanity by the Dutch painter Godfried Schalcken, and a 17th-century Italian-school Crucifix.

Also on display is a valuable seismic map of Calabria Ultra, created by a monk tasked with documenting the state of the territory following the devastating 1783 earthquake. From the private collection of Senator Guglielmo Calarco come texts dating from the 18th to the 19th century, as well as paintings by twentieth-century artists such as Marino, Bava, Fabon, and others.

The ground floor of the building houses the Small Museum of Saint Paul (Piccolo Museo San Paolo), inaugurated in 1992 at the initiative of Francesco Gangemi, parish priest of the Church of San Paolo della Rotonda, with the aim of promoting the art collection gathered by the priest and later expanded through additional donations.

The museum holds a fine collection of icons dating from the 14th to the 20th century, a sketch attributed to Raphael depicting Moses, and paintings by various artists such as Guido Reni, Antonino Cilea, Giovanni Bellini, Lorenzo Lotto, and Antonello di Saliba, a representative of the school of Antonello da Messina.

Further enriching the collection are several gold and silver objects of Neapolitan and Sicilian origin from the 17th and 18th centuries. Noteworthy among them are a reliquary casket decorated with scenes of the Crucifixion and saints, a silver monstrance crafted in 1770 by Filippo Juvarra, and an ivory casket from the 17th century bearing the effigy of Saint Rosalia.