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Bandini Museum

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Museums

The museum showcases the works of Florentine artists from the 1200s to the 1400s

Located next to the Duomo of Fiesole, the structure that houses the museum was built by architect Giuseppe Castellucci in the early 1900s and was built to exhibit the vast art collection of Fiesole native Angelo Maria Bandini.
Bandini (1726 - 1803) was a man of great culture, a scholar and librarian at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.
 
After its initial layout from the 1930s, the museum was modified several times throughout the years and the current version was inaugurated on February 9, 2006.

The art collection was left as per Bandini’s legal will to the Chapter of the Duomo of Fiesole “for the benefit and good of the public” as it states in his will.
 
Giovanni del Biondo, Incoronazione della Vergine
Giovanni del Biondo, Incoronazione della Vergine - Credit: sailko
The collection is an important evidence of Florentine and Tuscan medieval art and includes paintings from the 13th to the 15th century, a small amount of Byzantine works and terracotta sculptures from the Della Robbia workshop.
 
Bandini gathered the works of the so-called ‘primitive’ artists, and the late-middle ages and early Renaissance, which, at the time, were not appreciated for their artistic value. After Bandini’s passing, the collection remained in his home, which was located near the San Ansano church. The collection was later moved to the museum in 1913.