Museo Civico e Diocesano d'Arte Sacra di Colle Val d'Elsa

The collection is currently housed in the halls of the Palazzo dei Priori, it was formed in 1995 from the merger of the Civic Museum and the Museum of Sacred Art. The first was born at the beginning of the twenties of the twentieth century by the will of the 'Society of Friends of Art', and the second was formed at the end of the sixties in the memory of the last bishop living in Colle (Msgr. Francesco Niccoli). The collection offers a wide panorama of the artistic production in Valdelsa from the sixth to the twentieth century. Among the oldest examples of medieval art is the large table with Majesty, from Badia a Isola (Monteriggioni), challenging and fascinating work of an unknown Sienese master (the so-called 'Master of Badia a Isola') active at the end of two hundred in the narrow circle of Duccio, which keeps track of some important innovations developed in the eighties thanks to the contact with the works of Cimabue and Giotto young. This is demonstrated by the construction of the marble throne, a real volumetric and three-dimensional rendering, and the austere presentation of the characters. Linked to the lesson and the iconographic models of the great Sienese founder is also the Madonna and Child, painted by Mark di Bonaventura, perhaps even in the first decade of the fourteenth century. absolute masterpiece of Italian sculpture of the early fourteenth century is the great wooden crucifix by Marco Romano for the Santa Maria church in Radi (Casole d'Elsa). The work is culturally linked to examples of classicism developed in the shipyards of the Gothic cathedrals across the Alps and stylistically consistent with marble figures sculpted by the wandering artist for Collegiate Casole d'Elsa, the cathedral of Siena, that of Cremona and the San Simeon church in Venice. The artistic schools of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that passed through the territory of the Val d'Elsa are well represented by the presence of important panel paintings, among which the Madonna and Child of the Sienese Niccolo di Ser Sozzo and the Birth of the Virgin, one of few remaining works of the painter from Colle Cennini, the famous author of the Libro dell'Arte. For the sixteenth century is offered a broad overview of Tuscan painting from the small Madonna and Child by Girolamo Genga, the Pietà with Saints Nicholas and Jerome (in temporary storage by the local church of St. Augustine), painted between 1518 and 1521 by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio and still contained in the beautiful carved original frame by Baccio d'Agnolo. The emotional subject of Ridolfo, and his Florentine prototype painted by Fra 'Bartolomeo for the Florentine church of St. Gallen, also tried to draw inspiration from Colle on Giovanni Maria Tolosani for his Pietà with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Bartholomew, painted in 1537. Late work of the Florentine Francesco Ubertini said Bachiacca is the altarpiece of the Annunciation and St. Sebastian, Nicola and Rocco, where, although disguised by his bizarre ways, you discover quotes from Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling. It follows the great altarpiece of the Deposition of Christ and Saints, by Giovan Battista Naldini, intelligent student of Giorgio Vasari, who also knew how to recover the lesson by Andrea del Sarto, and the charge of affections touching Pietà, which was commissioned by the bishop to Usimbardo Usimbardi Ludovico Cardi said Cigoli first 'reform' of the Florentine school of painting.

The museum also houses a rich collection of paintings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, among which the paintings of the Sienese Alessandro Casolani, Ventura Salimbeni, Sebastiano Folli, Bernardino Mei, the Florentine Pier Dandini and Roman Spadarino. The painting of the nineteenth century is represented by two very fine altarpieces painted for the church of St. Peter and the cathedral of Colle di Val d'Elsa, respectively Puccinelli Antonio and Antonio Salvetti, while themes profane shows in a large group of paintings of Colle painters active between the end of the century and early twentieth century. Finally it deserves special attention an extremely rare silver Eucharistic kit, consisting of four chalices, a paten and a spoon, which was found by chance in the basement in the village Pian dei Campi. The so-called 'Treasure of Galognano' is the testimony of the existence of a Christian community of Ostrogoths ethnicity, of the sixth century AD, linked to the church of Sant'Andrea in Galognano: a goblet bears the inscription: "+ HVNC GOBLET PVSVET HIMNIGILDA AECLISIAE GALLVNIANI ", while on the paten reads:" SIVEGERNA PRO animam SVAM FECIT ".