To best welcome citizens and tourists on holidays, many museums of the MiC Tuscany Regional Museum Directorate will be extraordinarily open on Sunday 31 March and Monday 1 April, Easter and Easter Monday, in some cases moving the weekly closing day. The many innovations including new installations, new acquisitions and recently completed restorations will make the visit itineraries even more interesting and complete.
Florence
TO Florence to the San Marco Museum, open on both holidays, it will also be possible to admire the large painting of the Thebaidattributed to Beato Angelico, just transferred from the Uffizi Galleries, which illustrates with an extraordinary and detailed wealth of details the teeming daily life of the monks in ascetic retreat on the mountains of Thebes, and the public will be able to retrace in the rooms and cells among countless masterpieces the entire iconography of the Easter days. The sacred itinerary is completed with the monumental frescoes of‘Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno and Andrea del Sarto respectively in the Cenacles of Sant’Apollonia and San Salviopen as always with free admission.
The spring that has just begun is the best season to appreciate the treasures of the historical parks and Medici Villas all open at Easter and Easter Monday, from the Park of Villa il Ventaglio to the recently reopened romantic park of the Medici Villa della Petraia, where you can walk along dirt paths, among large English lawns that frame points of view and original perspective telescopes on the tower of the Villa or on the dome of the Cathedral.
But the most awaited masterpiece is found in the Garden of the Medici Villa of Castello, where, freed from the scaffolding, it becomes visible again Animal Cave recently restored with its spectacular menagerie sculpted with dozens of animals in polychrome marble, the extraordinary tubs and the inlays of shells and multicolored stones that have recovered the original enchantment, waiting to come alive at the end of April with the commissioning of the games of ‘waterfall. The entire recently reopened area of the park will also be open to visitors, where two centenary oak trees have adapted their roots over the centuries to the conformation of the cave below and where the Apennine fountain by Bartolomeo Ammannati stands out.
Other Provinces
Easter and Easter Monday openings are always free for the Medici Villas of Poggio a Caiano and Cerreto Guidi, where, Sunday is the last day of the exhibition of Medici tapestries “The Four Seasons and the Chariots of the Sun and the Night”, woven between 1632 and 1637 on cartoons by Michelangelo Cinganelli (1632-1633), from engravings by Giovanni Stradano. On Monday 1st April, always in Cerreto, the little ones will be able to participate in the activity “Balls, balls, balls. Sayings and curiosities of Medici Florence”.
Also open for both holidays are the Tumuli of Montefortini and Boschetti in Comeana (PO), the National Archaeological Museum of Castiglioncello and in the province of Grosseto the archaeological areas of Roselle, Vetulonia and the ancient city of Cosa. The Sodo mound in Cortona (AR) will only be open on Easter day.
To Arezzo and province there are five museums ready to welcome visitors and tourists: the Basilica of San Francesco where the maintenance work on the extraordinary pictorial cycle of the Legend of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca has just been completed and is fully visible to the public once freed from the scaffolding, the Gaio Cilnio Mecenate National Archaeological Museum and the Roman Amphitheater and the National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art (closed at Easter). The Vasari House Museum also offers a digital journey through six works from the precious picture gallery, well representative of Tuscan Mannerism, particularly significant for the history of Giorgio Vasari’s house in Arezzo, with short videos placed in each room of the museum.
The Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions of the Upper Tiber Valley – Palazzo Taglieschi in Anghiari, open only on Easter Monday, also enriches the visit with a digital journey dedicated to one of its most important collections: the Robbiane, to the manufacturing technique, the history and fortune of glazed terracotta over the centuries.
TO Lucca the two national museums of Villa Guinigi and Palazzo Mansi will be open on both Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, the second with the exhibition “The elegance of the trait. Drawings by Bernardino and Pietro Nocchi”, an exhibition of fifty-six drawings by painters from the Lucca and Roman neoclassical painting scene, normally kept in the museum’s storage.
On the island of Elba the two Napoleonic residences of Villa San Martino and Palazzina dei Mulini were opened. The island of Elba preserves the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1814-1815) stay on the island. The memory of this stay, which lasted only ten months, is mainly linked to the two Napoleonic residences, the Palazzina dei Mulini, located at the top of Portoferraio and the Villa di San Martino, a few kilometers away, respectively testimonies of the public and private life of the ’emperor.
TO Pisa both the National Museum of San Matteo and the National Museum of Palazzo Reale are open: in the latter, on the occasion of the Easter holidays, on the large table in the center of the “court room”, visitors will be able to see exhibited for the first time, curated by the director and staff of the museum, a selection of the table services used by the Savoy family during their stays at the Pisan residence, now preserved in storage. The porcelains, made in the most famous Italian and foreign manufacturers such as Ginori and Villeroy&Boch, are all personalized with the coat of arms of the Royal House and were used both on private and official convivial occasions. The Ship Museum of Pisa will be open only on Monday 1 April with its 5000 square meters of exhibition space and 47 sections divided into 8 thematic areas, seven boats from the Roman era, dating back to between the 3rd century BC and the 7th century AD, of of which four are substantially intact, and around 800 artefacts that tell of a millennium of trade and sailors, routes and shipwrecks, navigations, life on board and the history of the city of Pisa.
The monumental Certosa of Calci welcomes the public with accompanied visits to the evocative environments rich in art and history which hosted the Carthusian order from the 14th to the 20th centuryor, the large cloister, the monks’ cells, the church, the numerous chapels, the refectory and the chapter house.
TO Pistoia The Fortress of Santa Barbara and the Oratory of San Desiderio and the former Church of Tau will be open on both days. In Monsummano Terme (PT) you can go through the rooms of the house museum of the poet Giuseppe Giusti on accompanied visits.
In the province of Siena The National Etruscan Museum of Chiusi will be open on both days where on Monday 1 April, at 11.00, the “Tiles of History” visit is scheduled for young visitors on the most significant finds in the museum and their history, completed by a laboratory.
Some museums are open exclusively with mandatory reservations, full details on museotoscana.cultura.gov.it/
Attention: in the event of a weather alert, some parks and archaeological areas may be closed. Before the visit, please consult the weather bulletin of the Tuscany Region www.regione.toscana.it/allertameteo and call the places directly for confirmation.
