Museo Civico

Frommer's Review

Pistoia's most worthwhile museum is housed in the 1294 Palazzo del Comune, sprouting a hard-to-see basalt black head from the early 14th century that local legends make out to be either a Moorish king of Mallorca enslaved by pirating Pistoians or a traitorous citizen who sold his city out to Lucca. The museum's first floor boasts a Lucchese-style panel painting of St. Francis surrounded by his life story (1260s), a 14th-century Lamentation by Lippo di Benivieni, a polyptych of the Madonna and Child with Saints by the anonymous Master of 1310, and four early-16th-century Sacred Conversations with heavy colors of deep saturation. Two of the Conversations are by local boy Gerino Gerini, and one each came from the brushes of Florentines Lorenzo di Credi and Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. The collection continues upstairs but goes downhill from here, with a glut of 17th- to 19th-century efforts on the third floor.

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