This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

Fattoria Celle is an ancient XV century villa in the province of Pistoia, and a modern open-air museum.
Around the mid-XX century, the villa became a property of Giuliano Gori, a collector and an entrepreneur from Prato, who decided to redesign the XIX century park and the farm’s plots by asking international artists to work in the available spaces.
The result is a collection of contemporary works of art, made with long-lived and immovable materials, which, nonetheless, do not override nature, but rather follow its influence and cultural heritage.

Crossing the neoclassical gate at the entrance of the villa, visitors can access the garden designed in 1844 by the architect Giovanni Gambino from Pistoia. He worked according to the romantic taste of that time, extremely popular all over the European gardens. The park, in addition to being a nature reserve with numerous tree species, is rich in architectural and naturalistic features of typical romantic tastes, such as the neo-Gothic pavilion used as a tea building, the romantic iron aviary, the neo-Egyptian funeral monument – a pyramid used as an icebox – and several water games.

The area covered by the farm, which is still active, features a typical Tuscan rural landscape, with terraced land planted with vines and olive trees, wheat and grassy plots. Those spaces now host 34 works of art outdoor. Among the exhibiting artists, there are some masterpieces of Alberto Burri, Richard Long, Fausto Melotti – with a series of steel elements floating on the water of a lake in front of the villa and producing some light sounds, Robert Morris – with an optical illusion labyrinth, and Richard Serra – with eight blocks of stone reminiscent of ancient megaliths.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)