The home of the Fondazione Pistoia Musei, dedicated to 20th-century art in Pistoia.
As a result of the 2018 refurbishment of the ground-floor exhibition rooms, Palazzo de’ Rossi is a model for learning about the various artistic generations that succeeded each other in the last century.
The Palazzo is the outcome of a series of construction procedures, most of which took place in the second half of the eighteenth century, that were intended to testify to the ancient lineage of the family, which is without question one of the most important in local history.
The family even traced its roots back to mythical hero Grandonio who fought against the Moors in the Balearic War almost a thousand years ago. The gigantic image of Grandonio is displayed to great effect in the Sala Ghibellina of the Palazzo di Giano, and the head located on the corner right before the Palazzo de’ Rossi is traditionally attributed to him. In the early nineteenth century, the de’ Rossi family also had a terracotta statue with his effigy placed in the palazzo’s courtyard.
The recently restored Palazzo de’ Rossi is an impressive example of Tuscan architecture whose interior was decorated in the early 19th-century by the Pistoiese painters Valiani, Fini, and Bezzuoli.
