The halls of Palazzo De’ Rossi house a selection of artworks from Pistoia collected over the years.

The twentieth-century section extends from Mario Nannini’s Futurism to the lyrical formal works by Remo Gordigiani and Aldo Frosini, encompassing the two “schools” that emerged in Pistoia in the course of the century: one in
the aftermath of World War I (with Bugiani, Cappellini and Caligiani, among other artists), the other in the aftermath of World War II (with Barni, Buscioni, Ruffi and Natalini).

Big names naturally include Marino Marini, Gualtiero Nativi with his abstract art, and Mario Nigro with his ‘concretism’. Including both widely known artists and ones of more local fame, the itinerary traces a long journey across the contrasting tendencies of the twentieth century. The collection may easily be visited upon appointment.

The exposition halls have recently been arranged in the Palazzo Comunale, an edifice of eclectic style, built in 1913. In the interior, the gallery is located in the spaces of the former Art Nouveau post office, as we are reminded by the message on the glass doors by Galileo Chini.

Here are displayed among other works, Vita [Life], a painting of huge size by Pietro Annigoni from 1957–1960, and Donna avvolta in un volo di uccelli [Woman caught in a flight of birds], a work by Joan Miró from 1980.
This large canvas was donated by the Surrealist Catalan artist to Montecatini on occasion of an exposition arranged by a former Cuban Minister of Culture, Carlos Franqui, a political exile residing in Montecatini.

Acquired by the banking foundation, the Scalabrino collection presents a conspicuous number of twentieth-century works (over 600 paintings and almost 100 sculptures) intended to redecorate the original seat of the collection, Villa Ortensie, after restoration work has been carried out. For the moment, the collection is shown in rotation in the seat of the bank (Credito Valdinievole) that acquired it in 2011.

The Museo dell’Accademia d’arte Dino Scalabrino was founded in 1963, the work of the then Health Director of the Montecatini thermal baths and Director of the Azienda autonoma di cura e soggiorno, during the golden age of this thermal destination.
The works were donated by artists, gallery proprietors, and visitors who were there in passing. An important polyptych by Galileo Chini comes to mind, now in the repository in the Palazzina delle Terme Reali, besides artists associated with the local area in some way.

In the 19th century Villa Renatico Martini, a short way outside the town, is the museum that since 1988 has hosted a constant flow of temporary exhibits that sometimes have brought about donations for the Il Renatico permanent collection of works.

The most homogeneous nuclei are that of Ketty La Rocca and visual poetry, the graphic works connected to the Biennale of Engraving initiated in 1999, that which documents Tuscan art in the immediate postwar period during the fierce controversy between figurative art and abstract art that fired the debate in Tuscany as well. Also on display, among others, are works by  Pietro Annigoni, Vinicio Berti, Antonio Catelani, Alfredo Fabbri, Eugenio Miccini, and Lamberto Pignotti.

Consisting of 230 plaster casts from the studio of Libero Andreotti (1875–1933), this is one of the most complete and significant cast galleries in Tuscany.

The museum stems from a generous donation to the artist’s home city by his family. Inaugurated in 1992, the gallery is located in the 13th-century Palazzo del Podestà, where Andreotti’s sculpture – modern, yet filled with Classical echoes – harmoniously blends with its surroundings. The exposition covers almost the entire output of the master, who was one of the most outstanding Italian artists of the 20th-century, and was well informed on the international styles and experiments of his time. On the ground floor are the plaster casts for the monuments to the Fallen of Milan and Bolzano.
The building also houses the Andreotti Archive, which includes his letters, manuscripts and photographic library.

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In 1951, 70 years after the birth of the tale, published for the first time in 1881 in the children’s newspaper Il Giornale dei piccoli, the mayor of Pescia proposed commemorating Carlo Lorenzini, who had made his birthplace famous with his pseudonym (Collodi). He was thinking of a monument that would allow children to relive the story of the marionette as a fairy tale. The task was entrusted to artists and architects who, in little more than a hectare, were asked to brighten the space with a monument of rare sensibility.

The first two works were inaugurated in 1956: the bronze Pinocchio e la Fata [Pinocchio and the fairy] by Emilio Greco and the Piazzetta dei Mosaici [Piazzetta of mosaics] by Venturino Venturi, an open-air room whose mosaic walls retold some of the episodes of the adventure. In 1972 the second phase was completed, Paese dei Balocchi [Toyland], planned by the landscape architect Pietro Porcinai and by Marco Zanuso, author of the Pesce-cane [Shark], the Casa della fata [Fairy’s house], Villaggio di Pinocchio [Pinocchio’s village] and the Nave corsara [Pirate ship]. The paths lead to recreation areas relating an episode from the tale and featuring sculptures, many of which by Pietro Consagra. The Osteria del gambero rosso, housing the restaurant of that name, was completed in 1963, the work of Giovanni Michelucci.

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The restored woman’s gallery of San Pietro, since the end of 2014 has accommodated the sculptures donated to the Liceo Artistico (art high school) of Pistoia by the family of Andrea Lippi.

Scale models are presented here alongside full-sized sculptures made of plaster, terracotta, marble and bronze,  materials he was familiar with since infancy owing to his father’s well known foundry. Lippi lived only a short time (1888–1916) and this collection shows his visionary style, verging on Art Nouveau — which he interpreted with sinuous yet dense lines fraught with new tensions.
His father’s foundry was frequented by sculptors like Bistolfi and Calandra, and his training under De Carolis at the Florence academy must have marked his stylistic development: the young artist was turning towards an expressionistic simplification of forms and contours — also shared by his companion and friend Lorenzo Viani — when he met an untimely death.

The Foundation was founded at the turn of the new millennium with the donation of the artist’s works and of Villa Stonorov to the city of Pistoia by Jorio Vivarelli (1922-2008) and his wife Giannetta.

The Foundation is occupied in promoting and safeguarding Vivarelli’s works and that of the artistic culture of Pistoia. The sculptures are dotted around the park and in three large exhibition rooms. There is also a didactic laboratory, a library and a multifunction room. The master’s artistic development is documented from his youth onwards, his Crucifixions, rendered in a vibrant abstract style, testify to the violence of the war that made him prisoner in a concentration camp.
Here too are his scale models and studies for the piazzas planned with Stonorov during their sojourn in America.

On the mezzanine floor of the civic museum, apart from the historical nucleus of twentieth-century works, and adjacent to the corridor arranged with the canvases of the postwar period, stands the big room of the Centro di Documentazione Giovanni Michelucci (1891–1990), arranged on a project by the architect Bruno Sacchi and inaugurated in 1980.
The collection has a large number of drawings, plastic models and photographic slides testifying to the work and research of this noted Pistoia architect and urban planner.

Located in Palazzo Comunale and open to the public since 1922, the museum houses the twentieth-century section on the mezzanine floor, at the conclusion of the exposition itinerary dealing with the city and its territory.

Here are works by Renzo Agostini, Pietro Bugiani, Alfiero Cappellini, Francesco Chiappelli, Egle Marini Giuntoli, Umberto Mariotti, Corrado Zanzotto  and other artists working between the two wars in the Pistoia area, with a common adherence to the principles of a restrained figurative style reflecting measured and intimate creativity. At the end of the corridor, the so-called “middle generation” (artists born after the First World War and active after the Second World War, distinguished by the contrast between figurative art and abstract art, and represented by a small group of works by Aldo Frosini, Valerio Gelli and Jorio Vivarelli.