Description
The Palazzo dei Vescovi is the old residence of the bishops of Pistoia, on Piazza del Duomo, next to the cathedral: an 11th-century palace with a large Gothic brick loggia. Today it's a museum running from the Etruscans to the 19th century, including the sacristy of the theft told by Dante.
The most famous stop is the Sacristy of San Jacopo, built between 1163 and 1170 to keep the treasures donated to the patron saint. It was here, in 1293 or 1294, that Vanni Fucci committed the theft Dante recounts in Canto XXIV of the Inferno.
Above it is the Chapel of San Niccolò, the bishop's private chapel. The vault is blue, covered in large eight-pointed stars; the walls have early 14th-century frescoes with stories of Saint Nicholas and the martyrs, and a large Crucifixion from the end of the century.
Among the works, the Millefiori tapestry, also called the Adoration tapestry, stands out, along with a wooden angel by Giovanni Pisano. From another era is the cycle of mural temperas by Giovanni Boldini, which once decorated a room in the Villa La Falconiera, near Pistoia.
The Cathedral Museum displays the sacred furnishings and liturgical vestments gathered over the centuries, and then there is Piero and Elena Bigongiari's collection of 17th-century Florentine painting.
From the gallery above the cathedral portico you look down on the baptistery and the square. In the basement, the archaeological route shows the remains found during restoration, since the palace stands on one of the oldest spots in the city. A tactile museum, designed also for blind visitors, lets you get your hands on Pistoia's monuments.
The palace was born of a quarrel. At the end of the 11th century, disputes between the bishop and the cathedral canons drove the bishop to build a house all of his own, on the market area that Emperor Otto III had given him. At first it was a fortress, with a tower and battlements.
Among its guests was Frederick Barbarossa. Unusual details survive from the palace of that time, such as the chapel's hanging brick apse, visible from Via del Duomo, and the outside staircase documented in 1220, one of the oldest in Italian civic architecture.
Bishop Scipione de' Ricci, who found it chaotic, obtained the grand duke's permission to build a new one, and in 1786 the old palace was sold. Divided into flats and shops, it almost lost its character, regained only with the restoration by the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia, completed in 1980.
The most famous stop is the Sacristy of San Jacopo, built between 1163 and 1170 to keep the treasures donated to the patron saint. It was here, in 1293 or 1294, that Vanni Fucci committed the theft Dante recounts in Canto XXIV of the Inferno.
Above it is the Chapel of San Niccolò, the bishop's private chapel. The vault is blue, covered in large eight-pointed stars; the walls have early 14th-century frescoes with stories of Saint Nicholas and the martyrs, and a large Crucifixion from the end of the century.
Among the works, the Millefiori tapestry, also called the Adoration tapestry, stands out, along with a wooden angel by Giovanni Pisano. From another era is the cycle of mural temperas by Giovanni Boldini, which once decorated a room in the Villa La Falconiera, near Pistoia.
The Cathedral Museum displays the sacred furnishings and liturgical vestments gathered over the centuries, and then there is Piero and Elena Bigongiari's collection of 17th-century Florentine painting.
From the gallery above the cathedral portico you look down on the baptistery and the square. In the basement, the archaeological route shows the remains found during restoration, since the palace stands on one of the oldest spots in the city. A tactile museum, designed also for blind visitors, lets you get your hands on Pistoia's monuments.
The palace was born of a quarrel. At the end of the 11th century, disputes between the bishop and the cathedral canons drove the bishop to build a house all of his own, on the market area that Emperor Otto III had given him. At first it was a fortress, with a tower and battlements.
Among its guests was Frederick Barbarossa. Unusual details survive from the palace of that time, such as the chapel's hanging brick apse, visible from Via del Duomo, and the outside staircase documented in 1220, one of the oldest in Italian civic architecture.
Bishop Scipione de' Ricci, who found it chaotic, obtained the grand duke's permission to build a new one, and in 1786 the old palace was sold. Divided into flats and shops, it almost lost its character, regained only with the restoration by the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia, completed in 1980.