St Andreas Picture Gallery, Religious art museum in Empoli, Italy.
The Pinacoteca Museo della Collegiata di Sant'Andrea occupies rooms of the canonica beside the Collegiata di Sant'Andrea in Empoli. Its collection is arranged over two floors in eight rooms, plus the covered loggia on the first floor of the cloister, where the glazed terracottas are displayed. Room 1, originally the small church of San Giovanni Battista, was turned into a baptistery in 1464 and holds Bernardo Rossellino's 1447 baptismal font.
Empoli-born Vincenzo Salvagnoli, who took part in Tuscany's provisional government in 1859 and prepared the 1860 plebiscite for annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia, is considered the museum's founder; a grant of 5,040 lire paid for its first installation. The first home was the chapel of San Lorenzo next to the collegiate church, with 54 works, mostly from the collegiate church but also from other churches and private donations. Guido Carocci, inspector of the Florentine Soprintendenza, first gave the collection a chronological order and a section for terracotta sculpture and illuminated manuscripts. Growing holdings forced a move in the 1930s, halted by Second World War bombing; the museum reopened only in 1956, was reinstalled in 1990, and was reorganised with new systems in 2023 using PNRR funds.
The museum keeps works moved here from the Collegiata and from churches and chapels of the surrounding territory, including the pieve of Santa Maria a Ripa. The baptismal font by Bernardo Rossellino, dated 1447, came from the Collegiata and now stands in the former church of San Giovanni Battista, made a baptistery in 1464.
The museum occupies rooms of the canonica beside the Collegiata di Sant'Andrea, with the collection on two floors: eight rooms plus the covered loggia on the first floor of the cloister, where the glazed terracottas are displayed. Room 1, formerly the church of San Giovanni Battista, holds the 1447 baptismal font by Bernardo Rossellino. The visit also includes the church of Santo Stefano degli Agostiniani.
The ground-floor hall was originally the small church of San Giovanni Battista, converted into a baptistery in 1464 and linked to the collegiate church by a corridor. At its centre stands Bernardo Rossellino's baptismal font of 1447, brought here from the collegiate church.
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