博物馆 Le Clarisse Cultural Centre

Il Polo Culturale Le Clarisse — Le Clarisse Cultural Centre — is located inside the former Convent of Santa Chiara in Grosseto, a building that dates back to the end of the sixteenth century, and which was enlarged and refurbished during the seventeenth century. Abandoned by the resident nuns at the end of the eighteenth century, the edifice was used first as the home for employees of the nearby hospital, before it eventually acquired a creative and artistic purpose, hosting the studios and apartments of painters. Since 1995, it has been a property owned and run by the city. After the year 2000, thorough restoration works have been undertaken. Today, newly restored and united with the adjoining Church of the Bigi (the former Church of Santa Chiara), the convent of Le Clarisse (the Poor Clares) is a lively and dynamic civic cultural centre, which looks towards the future while telling its own story, housing four cultural institutions:

THE MUSEUM OF THE GIANFRANCO LUZZETTI COLLECTION

CLARISSE ARTE

THE MUSEOLAB – Laboratory Museum of the city of Grosseto, and

THE ROBERTO FERRETTI ETHNOGRAPHIC COLLECTION AND ARCHIVE OF POPULAR TRADITIONS

The ground floor holds THE MUSEUM OF THE GIANFRANCO LUZZETTI COLLECTION, inaugurated in 2019 following the donation to the City of Grosseto of a substantial collection of works that Gianfranco Luzzetti, a Florentine antiquarian — but of Grossetan origin — had brought together in the course of his life. The heart of the collection focuses on seventeenth-century Florentine art. Its display inside a monastery of the same period, built during Florentine dominion over Grosseto, enhances the identity of the collection, based on Baroque art from the Tuscan capital, rediscovered and valorised only since the 1960s, thanks to the work of important art historians like Mina Gregori, and antiquarians like Gianfranco Luzzetti. Among the seventeenth century works, particular recognition can be given to four paintings by Pier Dandini — to whom an entire room is dedicated — and to works by Santi di Tito, Cigoli, Passignano, Giovanni Martinelli, Jacopo Vignali, Francesco Curradi, Giovanbattista Vanni and Pietro Tacca.

The museum’s collection also features artworks by the Roman School, among them pieces by Spadarino, by Passeri and Rusconi, as well as paintings from Northern Italy, such as a large canvas by Montalto, and a small still-life by Panfilo Nuvolone. One also can admire eighteenth-century masterpieces, by Corrado Giaquinto and Giovanni Domenico Lombardi called the “Little Man”. The collection is completed by two nineteenth-century landscape paintings, by Maffei and by Markò.

Located on the building’s first floor is CLARISSE ARTE, an exhibition space reserved for temporary shows, and an information centre composed of the following: a library dedicated to local art, an artists’ archive, a mediatheque, and a repository of artworks selected from public art collections.

Among the works in the repository that are exhibited on a rotational basis, a first nucleus focuses on the theme of “Researching the Territory: Origins”. A second nucleus is entitled “Masters of Realism”, and includes works by Levi, Treccani, Grazzini, Zancanaro, and other artists who have elaborated a specifically local tradition, with realist inclinations, among whom are Gentili, Dominici, and Faccendi. Then, following a chronological sequence, there are displayed works belonging to private donors: the nucleus of the Tarquini donation, which includes works by Antonio Bueno, Renato Guttuso, Tano Festa, and Mario Schifano. Finally, there are items from the Celtracon bequest – the International Art Exhibition at Grosseto in 1996, dedicated to “Research Efforts in the 1990s”.

On the second floor of the Le Clarisse Cultural Centre we find the MUSEOLAB, administered by the Fondazione Polo Universitario Grossetano (the University Centre Foundation of Grosseto) and by the University of Siena. The MUSEOLAB was founded after the urban archeological excavations in Grosseto carried out between 1998 and 2003, and it holds original finds as well as pictorial reconstructions of the history of the city and its surrounding province.

In addition, the second floor also houses THE ROBERTO FERRETTI ETHNOGRAPHIC COLLECTION and archive of popular traditions, a centre of documentation established with the aim of scientifically studying, analyzing, and valorizing diverse aspects of popular culture in the Maremma. Roberto Ferretti, together with Alfio Gianninoni, the former councilor of culture of the city of Grosseto, was the primary creator of the archive, giving an essential contribution to the definition of a project that was not only cultural but also social and political.