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Description
A local tradition, unsupported by any written document, claims that the main floor of the Rospigliosi Palace on via Ripa del Sale, which for some years has been home to the museum named after the last descendant of the family, was chosen as his residence by Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, Pope Clement IX, during one of his stays in Pistoia.
The rooms of the Clemente Rospigliosi Museum are in fact known in the city as the Pope's apartment, despite the fact that the branch of the family to which he belonged owned the other palace located on via del Duca.
Giulio Rospigliosi, who was pope between 1667 and 1669, is said to have stayed in these rooms for a short period when, still a cardinal, he stopped in Pistoia on a return trip to Rome from Spain. But more than physically, Giulio was present in the city in those years with important secular and religious commissions. The apartment includes, in addition to the furniture, including the four-poster bed in which the Cardinal perhaps rested, some valuable furnishings and a rich picture gallery with a 17th-century flavor.
The forty-eight paintings still hanging on the walls of the main floor mostly belong to the 17th century, with only two exceptions: Bathsheba at the Bath by Sebastiano Vini and the Ancestors of uncertain attribution, but probably to be attributed to Fra' Paolino.
The picture gallery, largely still within its period frames, illustrates with particular effectiveness the taste of the noble patrons who entrusted the decorative work to Giacinto Gimignani, a painter from Pistoia who was esteemed by Cardinal Giulio.
The palace, in some of whose rooms the local Diocesan Museum has also found a worthy home, has belonged to the noble family of Pistoia since the time of Captain Giovan Battista, known as Bati, who bought it in the mid-16th century. The building, whose entrance portal with an elegant double-ramp staircase is in late Mannerist style with a Florentine influence, stands on the site of the first city walls and was certainly built from the restructuring of some medieval houses.
In some rooms adjacent to the Rospigliosi Museum, this museum has found a new home for some years now. It houses sacred objects and furnishings from the territory of the Diocese of Pistoia. The non-permanent exhibition, which however revolves around a stable core of pieces of rare and refined workmanship, displays a series of liturgical furnishings of various periods, testifying to the different needs of worship and decor of the ecclesiastical community of the territory. Along with chalices, monstrances, crosses and reliquaries, there are some paintings of the Pistoian school from the 16th century and some chasubles with 'bizarre' designs from the beginning of the 18th century.
The rooms of the Clemente Rospigliosi Museum are in fact known in the city as the Pope's apartment, despite the fact that the branch of the family to which he belonged owned the other palace located on via del Duca.
Giulio Rospigliosi, who was pope between 1667 and 1669, is said to have stayed in these rooms for a short period when, still a cardinal, he stopped in Pistoia on a return trip to Rome from Spain. But more than physically, Giulio was present in the city in those years with important secular and religious commissions. The apartment includes, in addition to the furniture, including the four-poster bed in which the Cardinal perhaps rested, some valuable furnishings and a rich picture gallery with a 17th-century flavor.
The forty-eight paintings still hanging on the walls of the main floor mostly belong to the 17th century, with only two exceptions: Bathsheba at the Bath by Sebastiano Vini and the Ancestors of uncertain attribution, but probably to be attributed to Fra' Paolino.
The picture gallery, largely still within its period frames, illustrates with particular effectiveness the taste of the noble patrons who entrusted the decorative work to Giacinto Gimignani, a painter from Pistoia who was esteemed by Cardinal Giulio.
The palace, in some of whose rooms the local Diocesan Museum has also found a worthy home, has belonged to the noble family of Pistoia since the time of Captain Giovan Battista, known as Bati, who bought it in the mid-16th century. The building, whose entrance portal with an elegant double-ramp staircase is in late Mannerist style with a Florentine influence, stands on the site of the first city walls and was certainly built from the restructuring of some medieval houses.
In some rooms adjacent to the Rospigliosi Museum, this museum has found a new home for some years now. It houses sacred objects and furnishings from the territory of the Diocese of Pistoia. The non-permanent exhibition, which however revolves around a stable core of pieces of rare and refined workmanship, displays a series of liturgical furnishings of various periods, testifying to the different needs of worship and decor of the ecclesiastical community of the territory. Along with chalices, monstrances, crosses and reliquaries, there are some paintings of the Pistoian school from the 16th century and some chasubles with 'bizarre' designs from the beginning of the 18th century.