On this page, scrolling through, you will find: the brochure map of the Borgo Museo (updated in December 2021), a brief introduction to the history of the Borgo Museo and the art collection of the Borgo Museo in a digital archive (for each work an info sheet). Enjoy your visit! CdP staff
Click here to download the brochure map 2021. Do you need to print it? Better not for the trees but we understand. Here's how in the case: print on A3 sheet and then fold it in 4 parts (first short side and then long side), leaving the text with the brochure’s titles in Italian and English on the outside as the cover.
A brief history of a village turned museum
“The visitor first notices the structures of the village, the stupendous grey stones that are still the constituent elements of the houses, the simple and fascinating architecture; then, little by little, he/she becomes aware of the artworks dislocated like furniture in studied symbiosis with the walls and the alleys…” - Tommaso Paloscia, founder of the Castagno’s open-air Museum
Castagno di Piteccio, in the municipality of Pistoia. A tiny Tuscan village located about 12 km from the city and 500 meters above the sea level, reachable by car or train but only accessible on foot, inhabited by over seventy Castagnans and very beautiful cats, founded around 1600 (after the mysterious destruction of a nearby Castle, whose ruins were used to build the little town), embraced by hills and mountains covered with woods, once of chestnut trees, now mostly of black locust. In Castagno there are no shops, there are no bars or restaurants, no tobacconists or florists. There are stone houses, one on top of the other, which branch off and interlock along the two main cobblestone streets, and some stones that for centuries have kept enigmatic engravings, symbols and guardian dates of ancient stories. There is the small church dedicated to the patron Saint Francis (always celebrated with the traditional Tortellata alla castagnola), the Residence with the swimming pool open in summer, and the Station (a still active stop along the historic Porrettana railway line that crosses the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines): a small pastel pink waiting room, immersed in the green of nature, a corner of the world that if discovered by director Wes Anderson would risk becoming famous as set of one of his next films. And then there is the legendary Pro Loco: the tourist association that since 1958 has been involved in protecting and promoting the village of Castagno, the nature that surrounds it, and the art that has made it an open-air museum since 1975. Yes, thanks to the work of the art critic Tommaso Paloscia (Rome 1918 - Florence 2005), who loved to vacation here with family and friends, from 1975 to 2004 Castagno inherited an important artistic heritage becoming a village with an outdoor museum consisting of over 40 artworks scattered around the village, 12 frescoes and 30 sculptures that have become almost like furniture, an integral part of the environment. A precious collection to which new artworks were added from 2019 to 2021, even beyond the "walls", marking the beginning of a project to spread the museum towards the surrounding landscape and thus creating new slow walks between art and nature, in particular along Via Valle e Vigna, towards and beyond Casa Paloscia or the Station and the entrance of the paths that, crossing the forest, lead to the three neighbouring villages, namely Piteccio, San Mommè, Signorino (by the way, for those who love walking: online, on Castagno’s website, the interactive map Trifoglio offers a selection of slow routes suitable for everyone). Thus, today in Castagno there are 66 artworks. To count them all, you need to look around carefully, from the sky to the ground: some of them look out of the windows, others hide in the bushes, others surprise you around the corner or stand out only if you pay close attention to where you step!
In 2019, the Pro Loco started a cultural-based regeneration process of the territory curated by CCT-SeeCity (guidezine: www.cct-seecity.com | studio: www.cct.world) which since 2009 has been dealing with Communication for Culture and Territory. After an initial study begun in 2017, CCT has worked on digital storytelling on the one hand and cultural design on the other, creating three main formats/events: Castagno di Maggio - slow walks, Borgo Museo Festival and the Artist Residency.
From 2019 to 2021, CCT has worked to create a glocal community around the territorial identity of the Borgo Museo by involving the local community (inhabitants) on the one hand and a temporary community (understood as the set of all people and organisations who share a relationship with the territory) on the other, in a project that has generated a new collective awareness of the value (resources and potential) of the territory and activated a process of bottom-up participation, awakening or stimulating connections and feelings, collaborative dynamics and collective desires. The dream was to make Castagno di Piteccio become the Borgo Museum of Pistoia, in other words to create a new cultural centre in Italy, alive and deeply lived, made up of art and nature but above all of people.
In these three years, many small steps have been taken, from the Guide Book to the Festival… The last project is The artworks and the artists of the Borgo Museo di Pistoia which enhances and shares the collection through contemporary languages and tools (such as the QR codes on the new tags) by creating a digital archive on the website www.castagnodipiteccio.it and therefore a greater accessibility to the Borgo Museo cultural heritage, an experience that can take place before, during, or after the visit, even at a distance! At the base there is a collective work* of cataloguing, and therefore research and writing for each single artwork, which has led to discover many important facts, including the existing link between Borgo Museo and Uffizi Galleries (told in the file on the sculpture L’Unione by Diana Baylon), a discovery that gave rise to the idea of joining the Uffizi Diffusi network.
This last project - conceived and curated by CCT-SeeCity and carried out with the contribution of the Pro Loco of Castagno, the Municipality of Pistoia and the Caript Foundation as part of the call For culture #iorestoattivo 2020 - is a gift from Castagno to the World! However, let's always remember that it’s the people who make the places, and therefore: now that you are here, browse as much as you like on the site, but then take a train, get off at Castagno Climatic Station M. 500 a.s.l. (as the old sign states) and come to wander between art and nature. The Castagnans are waiting for you.
ATTENTION! Find out more about Castagno - the history of the little town, the Castle and the Queen Ansa, the chestnut tree that was the bread tree, the Porrettana railway designed by Jean Louis Protche in the 19th century and the Station inaugurated in 1960, the Castagno Award and the birth of the open-air Museum, the flora and fauna surrounding the village, the traces of industrial archeology and the gigantic centuries-old chestnut trees in the woods, and so much more… - by purchasing with 15 euros the Guide Book Castagno di Piteccio - il borgo museo di Pistoia (192 pages full of images, photos and graphics + 4 thematic maps) and thus supporting the Cultural Resistance of the Borgo Museo. Email to castagnodipiteccio@gmail.com and order your copy. Pick up at the Pro Loco or request shipping. Thank you with all our heart.
With care, CdP staff
www.castagnodipiteccio.it | @castagnopit | #BorgoMuseo
Do you need to print it? Better not for the trees but we understand. Here's how in the case: print on A3 sheet and then fold it in 4 parts (first short side and then long side), leaving the text with the brochure’s titles in Italian and English on the outside as the cover.
The artworks and the artists of the Borgo Museo of Pistoia
To date (December 2021), the Borgo Museo di Pistoia houses 66 works of art. Here is a list divided into Frescoes (1975) - Sculptures (1976-2004) - New Artworks (2019-2021) - Casa Paloscia (1975-2021). For each artwork, it’s possible to read an in-depth sheet that briefly tells the life and poetics of the artist and his/her relationship with Castagno, finally describing the work located in the village. Furthermore, at the bottom of the page, there can be links to websites or web pages, social media accounts, videos, articles and interviews signed by the CdP staff or shared from other sources.
Note: just click on the title of the work or the name of the artist to read the relevant sheet.
Frescoes 1975
Here is the origin of the castagnola collection. These are the artworks that make up the first nucleus of the Castagno open-air Museum, born from the idea of the art critic Tommaso Paloscia to invite, in the summer of 1975, twelve painter friends to represent the twelve months of the year with the fresco technique. Knowing all the artists very well, and therefore also their poetics, Paloscia probably assigned to each one the month to paint and, in agreement with the inhabitants who offered their own home walls, the first art path was created in this way.
Click on the title of the artwork or the name of the artist to read the description.
Sculptures 1976 – 2004
After the twelve frescoes, and thus from the year following the foundation of the Castagno Open Air Museum, the sculptures started arriving to enrich the collection of the village. From 1976 to 2004, over thirty artworks continued to embellish the walls of the houses, the alleys and the squares of the little town. Over the years, unfortunately, some works of art have been lost and today we count thirty of them. As in the case of paintings, with some exceptions, their presence and location is due in particular to the direction of the art critic, and in this circumstance above all the curator, Tommaso Paloscia.
Click on the title of the artwork or the name of the artist to read the description.
New Artworks 2019 – 2021
After the death of Tommaso Paloscia in 2005, the Castagno open-air Museum stopped its art production and the collection remained unchanged until 2018. Then in 2019 the Pro Loco began a path of cultural-based regeneration of the territory curated by CCT-SeeCity and thus the Borgo Museo project was born. Here, therefore, we have listed, following a chronological order, the artworks created during the two Artist Residencies or on the occasion of some events such as the Borgo Museo Festival. The works of the first Residency (2019) are located in the village and are mainly murals while those of the second Residency (2021) went beyond the "walls" with the intention of continuing the museum diffusion project started in 2020 with the installation of the sculpture (just restored and previously located in the village) Amor Filiale by Pietro Cioni above the Fountain of Alberuccio and the inclusion of the artworks at Casa Paloscia into the collection of the Borgo Museo, this way creating new walks of art and nature along Via Valle and Vigna, towards the station and the entrance to the paths that cross through the woods and lead to the neighbouring villages around Castagno.
Click on the title of the artwork or the name of the artist to read the description.
Idolo – Pattern Nostrum, Borgo Museo Festival 2019
Il Castello Ritrovato – Matteo Raciti, Borgo Museo Festival 2021
Highlights – Marija Stankovic, Residenza d’Artista 2019
Trittico – Holly McKelvey, Residenza d’Artista 2019
Transmigrazione – Amie Lin, Residenza d’Artista 2019
Tracce dorate – Christina Gschwantner, Residenza d’Artista 2021
Calma interiore – Bianca Lugmayr, Residenza d’Artista 2021
Castagno – Christiana Matos, Residenza d’Artista 2019
Greta ed Emma – Bianca Tschaikner, Residenza d’Artista 2019
In ascolto degli alberi – Nina Urlichs, Residenza d’Artista 2021
Sutura – Davide Tagliabue, Residenza d’Artista 2021
Il risveglio dei sentieri – Victoria DeBlassie & Connor Maley, Residenza d’Artista 2021
Casa Paloscia 1975 – 2021
Casa Paloscia is located outside the "walls" of the little town, in Via Valle e Vigna 12. It entered the artistic itinerary of the Borgo Museo in 2020, thus further expanding the collection and inaugurating the diffusion project of the Castagno open-air Museum from the village towards the surrounding landscape. Listed here are the main artworks (and of which we know the artist) that decorate all the external walls of the house. Some have been here since the 70s, tributes to Tommaso Paloscia and his family, in particular his wife Nara and daughter Simonetta, given by artist friends who often and gladly gathered here around the art critic, spending long and pleasant holiday days together. Others were instead placed by Simonetta Paloscia in more recent years, in particular the three sculptures signed by three women with whom the "Piazzetta delle artiste (Women artists’ little square)" was inaugurated in October 2020 in dialogue with the "Via delle artiste (Women artists’s street)" in the village (where the sculptures by Diana Baylon and Chiara Coda are located, until 2019 the only two female artists present with their works in the collection of the Castagno open-air Museum).
Click on the title of the artwork or the name of the artist to read the description.
NOTES on this collective work*
The cataloging project, curated by CCT-SeeCity for the Pro Loco of Castagno, began as a work mainly of research and study because the Castagno Open-Air Museum, with reference to its own collection, only possessed a list of titles (artworks) and names (artists) and their mapping.
The research was started in January 2020 together with the IV D class of the Scientific High School of Pacini Institute in Pistoia, through a school-work alternation project which lasted until May of the same year and which involved - under the guidance of art history professor Anna Mannari and art historian and museum operator Ilenia Vecchio - 14 students who contributed to the work of the CdP staff: Aglietti Tommaso, Anzidei Claudio, Bessi Niccolò, Chiti Francesco, Di Tirro Alberto, Giusto Sharon, Ispas Ovidiu Cristian, Leporatti Matilde, Monti Emanuele, Pagnini Niccolò, Pierattini Silvia, Sangiorgio Ernesto, Sardini Margherita, Susini Veronica.
This initial phase was fundamental for the development of a broader and more structured project—from writing to digital archiving, from the new maps-brochures to the QR code system—which won the open call For culture #iorestoattivo 2020 promoted by Caript Foundation. Curated by CCT-SeeCity, the project for the enhancement of “The artworks and the artists of the Borgo Museo di Pistoia” was coordinated by Elena Mazzoni Wagner (cultural project manager) and created together with Ilenia Vecchio (art historian) and Erika Mazzoni Wagner (graphic designer) from the CdP staff, with the participation of Riccardo Boccardi (photos of Frescoes and Sculptures and Casa Paloscia are by him) and Rachele Salvioli (CdP staff, and the photos instead of Nuove Opere are by her). A special thanks goes to Simonetta Paloscia, for having made the Archive of her father Tommaso Paloscia in the home-studio in Florence available, an archive that is as precious as it is precise thanks to her mother Nara, and therefore our thanks also go to her.
This catalogue—heart of the “The artworks and the artists of the Borgo Museo di Pistoia” project, conceived and curated by CCT-SeeCity and created with the contribution of the Pro Loco of Castagno, the Municipality of Pistoia and Caript Foundation as part of the open call For culture #iorestoattivo 2020— tells the story of the art collection of the Castagno Open-Air Museum, so it enhances the history of the Borgo Museo, preserves its memory and shares its culture so that anyone can know, learn, remember, deepen, reflect, be inspired, dream, create... and therefore, in some way, continuing to take care of this little great cultural heritage that today, finally told and freely enjoyable, is a little more of everyone.
With care,
CdP staff (that is the team coordinated by CCT for the Borgo Museo)
www.castagnodipiteccio.it | @castagnopit | #BorgoMuseo