| The Museum of the Bigallo |
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Address: Piazza S.Giovanni, 1
The name Bigallo comes from the Compagnia Maggiore di Santa
Maria del Bigallo, under whose care was the Hospital for pilgrims
and wayfarers at Santa Maria a Fonteviva, called "del
Bigallo". In 1351 the Compagnia received as a gift a house
on the corner of Corso Adimari and built there the present loggia
and oratory.
Only in 1904 were the dispersed works of art gathered again in
the upper rooms after many vicissitudes including the flood of
1966. This small but significant collection of art commissioned
by the Confraternity or given by benefactors was finally
organized in 1976 and is now a unified collection which
illustrates through devotional works the story of the
Confraternity through the centuries. Works such as the Crucifix
by the "Master of the Bigallo" and paintings by
Bernardo Daddi (c. 1290-c. 1348) and his circle, and a picture by
Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (recorder 1368-1415) document one
of the Confraternity's most significant works, the care of
abandoned or lost children.
Apart from religious painting of the fourteenth-seventeenth
centuries, there are few fine sculptures by Alberto Arnoldi (mid
fourteenth century) who executed the niches and sculpture in the
loggia, along with works by Tuscan artists of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.
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