The Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi is one of the two main art museum hosting tapestry collections and mainly post-19th century art collections owned by the city of Lucca, Italy. The collection is displayed in the Baroque palace, formerly belonging to the Mansi family, and located in central Lucca. Many of the original room decorations remain in place.The Palace was first erected at the site of a few earlier tower-houses bought in 1616 by the Lucchese merchant of silk Ascanio Mansi and his descendants. While the facade retains earlier Renaissance window features, between 1686 and 1691, Ascanio's son Raffaello employed the architect Raffaello Mazzanti to further renovate the now palace, and the piano nobile rooms acquired the present decoration and a grand staircase access. The cooler ground floor rooms were turned into a summer apartment.
In the second half of the 18th century, Luigi Mansi pursued further refurbishing. The Mansi family retained prestige in the early 19th century; Raffaele Mansi and Camilla Parensi had been appointed courtiers to Elisa Bonaparte and Felice Baciocchi. Raffaello Mansi Orsetti, who died in 1956, was the first to display the art collections to the public. In the mid-1960s his children sold the palace to the state, which has converted into a National Museum of arts and tapestries.
The interiors house a highly decorated bedroom alcove with gilded caryatid columns flanking the portal.
Lucca Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours in Lucca, Italy. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Lucca. Construction was begun in 1063 by Bishop Anselm .
The Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi is the main art museum hosting the pre-modern art collections owned by the city of Lucca, Italy.
The museum is located in a refurbished villa on Via della Quarquonia, completed in 1418 for Paolo Guinigi, ruler of Lucca until 1430. After his death, the building was confiscated by the republic, and it has served various purposes over the years. Only in 1924 was it selected to house the art collection, which until then was housed in the Palazzo Pubblico. In 1948 it was donated to the Italian state, which carried out a more organized preservation campaign and at the same time rearranged the collection, subsequently distributing it between this villa and the Palazzo Mansi.
The late-Gothic building was constructed from 1413 to 1418 as a Villa di Delizia. It has an imposing brick façade with central ground-floor portico. Once elaborately decorated by Guinigi, it now houses collections of mainly the ancient, medieval, renaissance, baroque, and neoclassic periods.
San Michele in Foro is a Roman Catholic basilica church in Lucca, Tuscany, central Italy, built over the ancient Roman forum. Until 1370 it was the seat of the Consiglio Maggiore , the commune's most important assembly. It is dedicated to Archangel Michael.
