Museum of Santa Verdiana, sacred art museum in Castelfiorentino, Italy

The Museum of Santa Verdiana opened in 1999 in the rustic Casalone building beside the Santa Verdiana sanctuary in Castelfiorentino. Its four rooms on two floors display panel paintings, sculptures, illuminated codices and sacred vestments from churches in the municipal territory. Room 1 holds a late 13th-century Madonna and Child attributed to Cimabue and Giotto, from the Collegiata dei Santi Lorenzo e Leonardo.

The museum was inaugurated in 1999 in the rustic Casalone building next to the Santa Verdiana sanctuary. Its collection gathers panel paintings, sculptures, illuminated codices and goldsmith work from churches across the municipality, including the Collegiata dei Santi Lorenzo e Leonardo and San Prospero a Cambiano. The oldest pieces, attributed to Cimabue and Giotto and to Corso di Buono, date to the last decade of the 13th century.

The museum's name comes from the adjacent sanctuary of Santa Verdiana, and a 14th-century panel of the saint from that sanctuary opens the collection. The works were gathered from parish churches across the municipality, among them San Prospero a Cambiano, Sant'Jacopo a Voltigiano and San Frediano a Nebbiano, so the rooms map the devotional life of the Valdelsa countryside.

The museum occupies the rustic Casalone building beside the Santa Verdiana sanctuary, on the edge of Castelfiorentino's historic centre. The four rooms are split over two floors, with a staircase in the second room leading to the upper level. Visitors should allow time for both floors, since the goldsmithing and Mannerist paintings continue upstairs.

The oldest work in the museum is a panel of Santa Verdiana from the first half of the 14th century, painted by a Sienese master and repainted by a 19th-century restorer. It came from the sanctuary of Santa Verdiana itself, so the image of the town's patron saint returned to the building beside her shrine.