The Foundation was set up in 1982 by Giovanni Michelucci (1891–1990), the Tuscany Region and the municipalities of Fiesole, Pistoia and Florence, to “contribute to the study of and research in contemporary and modern architecture, and the problems of social infrastructure in particular.”

It can today be described as an original and well-established reference resource for research on the social habitat and the relationship between space and society. Since its inception, the foundation has provided a platform for discussing various topics to do with architecture and contemporary town planning, developing lines of research to enhance these topics through meetings, debates, exhibitions, publications, conferences, seminars, and studies. Photographs, projects, drawings, works of art and furnishings by Michelucci and from his collection are available to view or for consultation.

The Foundation is housed in the Villa Le Coste in Fiesole, once the residence of Primo Conti (1900–1988), who in 1980 turned it into a centre for research and documentation about the historic avant-garde movements.

The purpose of the Foundation is two-fold: on one hand the study and promotion of the artistic (painting and drawings) and literary (library and archives) heritage donated by the artist; on the other, to conserve and enhance every piece of documentary evidence to do with the period of the historic avant-garde movements. Both sections of the foundation work to this end: the archives on the first floor where there is a valuable library of rare publications as well as the extremely large archival collection, including documents relating to Conti, Papini and Pavolini; the Primo Conti Museum is on the ground floor where many paintings from his early years with Fauvist, Futurist and Metaphysical characteristics can be seen.

Open from Monday to Friday from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, on Saturday, Sunday and afternoon groups only by appointment. English and French guide on request.

Ticket: € 3.00

This museum documents the various periods in the Chini family’s involvement in the production of ceramics and glass through its collection of objects in majolica and stoneware, stained glass and preliminary drawings. Since 1999 it has been based in the Villa Pecori Giraldi, the interior of which is decorated with the work of the Chini family, such as San Giorgio che uccide il drago [Saint George Killing the Dragon] by Galileo, which dominates the entrance hall.

The historic sections of the museum tell the story of Galileo Chini and the workshops he set up, the Arte della Ceramica in Florence in 1896 and Le Fornaci di San Lorenzo in Borgo San Lorenzo in 1906, showing how Chini’s style evolved from naturalistic decoration to more abstract designs.
The museum has also created a reconstruction of the manufacturing process and detailed information about how the ceramic and glassware was produced.

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The Giardino delle Rose was designed by Giuseppe Poggi as part of the preparations for Florence as capital of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. It was situated within the area of Piazzale Michelangelo, and was planted with about a thousand varieties of roses.

The garden is also home to nine bronze and two plaster sculptures bequeathed by the artist Jean-Michel Folon (1934–2005) to the city after an exhibition at Forte Belvedere in 2005.

Three of these bronzes and the two plaster pieces date from the 1990s, while the other bronzes were made in the last years of the Belgian artist’s life, executed in similar vein to previous works of art and explorations.
At the end of the exhibition in October 2005, following Folon’s sudden death and his wife’s generosity, the statues were given a permanent home in this extraordinary belvedere that looks out over the city of Florence.

Set up by Giovanni Spadolini in 1980, the Foundation is situated in Via Pian dei Giullari in the Villa Il Tondo dei Cipressi, designed in the sixties by his brother Pierluigi.

The interior has remained as it was at Spadolini’s death and houses about 40,000 books and periodicals, as well as valuable Napoleonic and Risorgimento collections, and many works by ninetenth- and twentieth-century artists.
The works of art are distributed over the two floors of the villa where the most important of them give their name to the rooms where they are displayed: on the ground floor is the Soffici dining room and the Rosai sitting room; on the first floor is the Morandi drawing room, while in the bedrooms are paintings by his father Guido Spadolini and by Nino Caffè.
The stairs are hung with various drawings by Mino Maccari, Leo Longanesi and George Grosz; others by Renato Guttuso, Eugenio Montale and Dino Buzzati are arranged in open order.

Surrounded by parkland that offers a spectacular view of Florence, Villa Bardini holds major temporary exhibitions in addition to its permanent ones in the Pietro Annigoni Museum and the Roberto Capucci Museum.

The museum dedicated to Annigoni (1910–1988) opened in 2008 with a notable selection of works from the artist’s personal collection, including the first and third painting in the Solitudini series, the tragic Cinciarda and the famous Self-portrait of 1946.
Close by are the exhibition spaces managed by the Roberto Capucci Foundation dedicated to the work of the great Roman fashion designer (1930-).
This permanent exhibition houses sketches, photographs and the celebrated sculptural gowns for which Capucci is famous.

In 1959 Maria Luigia Guaita founded Il Bisonte printing press with an adjoining gallery of the same name.

Major artists of the period were invited to create lithographs and engravings, both techniques that had until then not been appreciated.
After the flood in 1966, the printers became more open to international collaborations with Moore, Calder, Sutherland, Matta, Lipchitz, Tamayo, exceptionally Pablo Picasso and many others who worked alongside great local artists such as Soffici, Carrà, Severini and Magnelli.

Work continues today at Il Bisonte as a specialist training centre for graphic art, as a cultural centre and as a printers, while temporary exhibitions are held in the gallery. The works of art donated by artists and friends and a valuable collection of prints are on show.

Even the museum that is celebrated for its outstanding Renaissance sculpture has acquired twentieth-century work, such as the group of sculptures donated in 1988 by Francesco Messina (currently in storage).

In the fine applied arts section, the room dedicated to ceramics is a small but significant collection of twentieth-century pieces made in Tuscany.
While some objects have a late nineteenth-century feel, with oriental and neo-Renaissance motifs — produced by the factories of Signa, Cantagalli and Borgo San Lorenzo founded by Galileo Chini — others have fully adapted to the Art Nouveau climate, as in the vases by Galileo Chini.

The 1920s and 1930s are represented by pieces designed by Romano Dazzi for Cantagalli and by a small celadon pot designed by Gio Ponti for Richard-Ginori, while the ceramic sculptures and vases by Marcello Fantoni offer a glimpse of the formal and linguistic evolution between the 1930s and 1950s

When Salvatore Ferragamo (1898–1960), one of the leading lights of Made in Italy, went to live in California taking with him his passion for creating shoes with a high degree of craftsmanship, he found work in the film industry.

The collection of shoes in the museum spans his entire career from 1927 to 1960, and also includes shoes made after Ferragamo’s death right up to the present. Some models document the relationship with artists of the time, such as the Futurist Lucio Venna, who created the renowned Ferragamo label. Others are testimony to the constant search for the perfect fit and the invention of constructions and materials, from the celebrated “wedge heel” in cork, patented in 1936 and immediately copied throughout the world, to the uppers in raffia or cellophane, or the sweetie papers adopted during the Second World War.

Then there were the shoes created for Hollywood film stars, from Marilyn Monroe to Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Anna Magnani, Paulette Goddard, and Sophia Loren, who came to Palazzo Spini Feroni in the 1950s for their shoes. The foundation and the museum have a rich and varied programme of exhibitions.

In 1983 Rodolfo Siviero, renowned mainly for recovering art works stolen during the Second World War, donated his encyclopaedic collection and his home in Lungarno Serristori to Tuscany Region.

The villa houses a large number of twentieth-century works of art, all figurative in nature, in keeping with Siviero’s strongly held views on continuity between ancient and modern. Siviero was friends with many of the artists, from De Chirico (who he got to know through Giorgio Castelfranco, the artist’s patron and previous owner of both the villa and the paintings), to Ardengo Soffici, Giacomo Manzù, Pietro Annigoni, Bruno Catarzi, Antonio Berti, Mario Moschi, Quinto Martini, and Francesco Messina.

The museum holds sculptures and commemorative medals commissioned by Siviero from these artists in the post-war period.