Percorso archeologico del Museo dell'Antico Palazzo dei Vescovi

Beneath the Bishops' Palace on Piazza del Duomo, Pistoia keeps the layer most visitors never see: the excavated remains of its first Roman settlement, threaded through the foundations of a house of bishops documented since 1091. The archaeological remains illuminate the successive history of the medieval palace above.

Why it matters

The palace on the north side of Pistoia's cathedral square has anchored the city for nine centuries, and its archaeological remains reveal deep strata of the city's history. The archaeological remains are incorporated into the Museo dell'Antico Palazzo dei Vescovi. The interpretive project Pistoia Moving Stories uses 3D models, video, sound and augmented reality to contextualise the excavated structures.

The remains also illuminate the building above them. The remains show how a fortified episcopal residence became a noble house in the later Middle Ages as the surrounding ground level rose.

What to notice

The archaeological sequence spans the first Roman settlement through the palace's medieval construction, with walls, floors, drains and household objects documenting daily life. The exception is the bicchiere di Edvige, a rare glass beaker of the type known as Hedwig glass, which came to Pistoia from the Syro-Palestinian area and ranks among the prize pieces of the collection.

The wider museum collection spans Etruscan material through the nineteenth century and includes the sacristy of San Jacopo, raised between 1163 and 1170 and recalled by Dante as the setting of Vanni Fucci's theft in the Inferno; the chapel of San Nicola; the sopraportico; a millefiori tapestry; a wooden angel attributed to Giovanni Pisano holding the head of John the Baptist; and the Bigongiari collection of seventeenth-century Florentine painting.

Context and history

The house of the bishops of Pistoia is documented from 1091, a fortified residence that took on the character of a noble dwelling in the twelfth century. Its precincts grew around the sacristy of San Jacopo, whose theft by the disgraced priest Vanni Fucci Dante fixed permanently in canto XXIV of the Inferno. By the sixteenth century the palace lacked service rooms, and Bishop Scipione de' Ricci's later acquisitions eventually led the diocese to seek permission from Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo for a new episcopal palace elsewhere; the old building passed to private owners and was heavily remodelled.

The recovery came in the twentieth century: a restoration funded by the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia ran from 1976 to 1980 and returned much of the original medieval structure. The palace, owned by Fondazione Caript, became the principal site of what is now Fondazione Pistoia Musei, and reopened in July 2023.