Museo Novecento, Modern art museum in Santa Maria Novella district, Florence, Italy.
Museo Novecento is an art museum in Florence spread across two floors that presents Italian artworks from the twentieth century. The collection spans 15 exhibition spaces and includes paintings, sculptures, videos, and other artistic works.
On 15 November 1966, after the Arno flood, critic Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti appealed to artists and collectors to donate a work to Florence. Over 280 responded, among them Lucio Fontana, Emilio Vedova and Sergio Scatizzi; the gifts arrived by January 1967 and were shown that February in Palazzo Vecchio as Gli Artisti per Firenze. They joined the civic Novecento collection, which already held Ottone Rosai paintings given by his heirs in 1963, and later the Della Ragione collection, donated in 1970.
The museum's name refers to the twentieth century, not to an artistic movement. Its core is the Alberto Della Ragione collection, 241 works of Italian art from 1920 to 1945 donated to Florence in 1970, alongside the Rosai bequest. The building is the former Ospedale di San Paolo, known as the Scuole Leopoldine.
The museum occupies the former Ospedale di San Paolo, known as the Scuole Leopoldine, on Piazza Santa Maria Novella, a short walk from the basilica and the train station. The galleries are arranged over two floors, with the entrance at street level and exhibition rooms reached by stairs or lift. Allow time for both the permanent collection and the temporary exhibition rooms.
The building itself is the former Ospedale di San Paolo, known as the Scuole Leopoldine, restored with funding from the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze before the museum opened in 2014. Its ground-floor arcade of round arches on slender grey stone columns faces Piazza Santa Maria Novella.
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