Castagno di Piteccio is the Borgo Museo (Museum Village) of Pistoia. But what is a Borgo Museo? Read below and discover it!

Walking through the alleys of the village, you will unavoidably bump into a lot of artworks. Castagno di Piteccio offers sculptures and frescos which transformed the village into a true open-air museum. The stone walls of the houses had become exhibition walls hidden between the green mountains and the blue sky. Therefore our open-air museum is open with free entrance every day of the year!

Open air museum since 1975

Castagno is an oper-air museum since 1975, when Florentine art critic and “vacationer” Tommaso Paloscia began to invite some artists who should donate an artwork, in change of the hospitality in the village. Now there are in total 12 frescos and 30 sculptures: more than 40 works made by famous national and international artists.

More than 40 artworks

The Borgo Museo is dedicated to Tommaso Paloscia, who inaugurated it. Today you can admire the works made by various artists:

12 Frescos by: Silvio Loffredo, Giuseppe Gavazzi, Renzo Grazzini, Arnaldo Miniati, Vinicio Berti, Quinto Martini, Luciano Guarnieri, Bruno Saetti, Antonio Bueno, Fabio de Poli, Luca Alinari, Alfredo Fabbri.

10 Sculptures by: Mauro Vaccai, Antonio Violano, Franco Cilia, Carlo Damerini, Alessandro Righetti, Mino Maccari, Romano Battaglioli, Guido Bucci, Aristide Coluccini, Enrico Bandelli, Galeazzo Auzzi, Gino Conti, Delio Granchi, Pietro Cioni, Venturino Venturi, Jorio Vivarelli, Diana Baylon, Chiara Coda, Gino Terreni, Antonio Berti, Giuseppe Gavazzi, Quinto Martini, Nado Canuti, Marcello Fantoni, Pirzio, Vitaliano De Angelis, Romano Lucacchini, Tito Amadori.

The artistic production stopped in the ‘90s and after Tommaso Paloscia’s dead in 2005. Today the Borgo Museo is handled by Pro Loco di Castagno, which is trying to restore this “tradition”: in 2019 the inhabitants will host some artists to enrich the museum! If you are an artist, please note our CALL FOR ARTISTS.

Now you have understood why we named Castagno after ‘Borgo Museo’ (Museum Village). A special, magical and uncommon place, probably the first but not the only one in Italy. Do you know others?

A ‘sibling’ in Valle d’Aosta

We found out that there is another Borgo Museo in Italy near Aosta. It is called Etroubles and since 2005 it is officially an open-air museum. In the alleys you can find more than 20 works signed by famous international artists. Two of them were added in 2006 and are dedicated to Via Francigena. This project had been realised by Municipality thanks to the support of EU and Fondation Pierre Gianadda (Martigny, Switzerland). As in Castagno, here the modernity of the artworks bumps harmoniously into the typical atmoshere of an historical village.

Photo: @simone.nava.74

Photo: @patrizia_s_56

Photo: @omar.schiavoni

The first Borgo Museo in Italy

(until proven otherwise)

Perhaps there are other open-air museums like Castagno di Piteccio and Etroubles in Italy, who knows where they are! But probably Castagno is the first Borgo Museo created in Italy.

Since the ‘70s it has been a place for artistic production. For example, Tommaso Paloscia organised for many years the “Premio Castagno Nazionale di Pittura” (Castagno National Prize for Painting).

The 1975 edition was the one, which founded the Borgo Museo. That was a special edition: the artists were invited to represent the 12 months by realising frescos that would have remained on the stone walls of the village houses. Year by year, this first little “core” had increased including more and more works.

Are we making a mistake? Maybe you know a more ancient Borgo Museo… We are curious to discover other ‘siblings’ in Italy and worldwide. If you know one, please share it with us!

P.S. If you want to report another Borgo Museo, please comment this post, contact us on social media or send an e-mail at castagnodipiteccio@gmail.com. THANK YOU!