Museo del Vetro di Piegaro

The Glass Museum of Piegaro occupies the town’s former glassworks. Its collections include tools, company records and objects from the local glassmaking tradition.

Why it matters

Glassmaking shaped Piegaro’s economy for centuries. The museum documents the craft from its medieval origins through the transition from hand-blown production to mechanized manufacturing, linking industrial history with the lives of the workers and families who depended on the glassworks.

What to notice

The Misciatelli table service includes glasses, bottles and jugs with engraved and painted decoration. Displays explain the straw-wrapping of fiaschi, a stage of production carried out by women, children and older workers. In the basement, the colata—a mass of glass left in the furnace—has solidified into a vivid green formation. The museum also preserves archival material and equipment from the works.

Context and history

Piegaro’s glass tradition is documented from the Middle Ages. In the early nineteenth century, the Misciattelli family reorganized production, and the glassworks received a silver medal at the 1861 Italian Industrial Exposition in Florence. By 1921, about 400 of the town’s 600 inhabitants worked in glassmaking. A modern plant was built in 1941 with backing from Princess Pallavicini. Glassblowing by mouth or mould remained common until semi-automatic compressed-air machines were introduced in the 1950s. In 1968, production moved from the historic works to a plant in the valley. The former factory was restored and opened as a museum in 2009.