The Pinacoteca Nazionale is the city's main painting collection, focused on Bolognese masters from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century. The strongest rooms cover the local sixteenth- and seventeenth-century school: Ludovico, Annibale and Agostino Carracci, Guido Reni, Guercino, Domenichino — painters who, in their day, set the standard for European religious painting after Caravaggio.
Highlights include Raphael's Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia, Perugino's Madonna in Glory, and several superb Reni altarpieces. The building is in the university quarter on Via delle Belle Arti, next to the Accademia di Belle Arti.