The Chini Manufacture Museum in Borgo San Lorenzo is housed inside Villa Pecori Giraldi. The old noble home has a typical Renaissance-style façade, while the inside was decorated in the 19th century by painters Angiolino Romagnoli, Pietro Alessio Chini and Pio Chini. Between 1906 and 1901 general Guglielmo Pecori Giraldi commissioned Galileo Chini to complete the coat of arms and devices of Florentine nobility related to his household.
The rooms of the villa were frescoed by the whole Chini family, with geometric, floral and medieval inspired patterns, include a spectacular cycle of San Giorgio.
The museum recounts the history of Chini Manufacture, which produced ceramic furniture pieces, stoneware and glassware that was popular in the bourgeois houses of the Liberty period in the furnaces of Borgo San Lorenzo: Galileo Chini was in fact one of the biggest figures of Italian Liberty and took his creations around the world.
A new section has also been added to the museum since 2018, the Chini Contemporary: it is an exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art and visual art. It is a place that investigates the constant evolution of the artistic medium and its connections with other creative disciplines.
There you can also find the Museum of Children, a space of seven rooms designed for the little ones and their families, where everyone can express their talent, inspired by the artists of the twentieth century. The Museum of Children is temporarily closed to the public
