The Ecomuseum of the Pistoia Mountains

The Ecomuseum is not a traditional museum: rather, it is a popular, museum-type experience which demonstrates the centuries-old relationship between the local people and their environment, communicating constantly through reciprocal influences and adjustments.

Created by the Province of Pistoia and open since 1990, it was the first ecomuseum to be established in Italy. An innovative project, it has been awarded a gold plaque in Parma as the best example for the enhancement of the Apennines.

Over the years, the Ecomuseum has developed and expanded, and it has now almost reached its final layout. Since November 2011, it has been managed by the Ecomuseum Association of the Pistoia Mountains, with its offices in Gavinana in the historic Palazzo Achilli.
Accredited in the Tuscan Region as being an extremely important regional ecomuseum, it is the leading authority of the ‘SiMoP’ – ‘Sistema museale Montagna Pistoiese’ – Museum System of the Pistoia Mountains.

The Ecomuseum of the Pistoia Mountains will carefully accompany you – with its six different itineraries – along the path to discovering mementos and traditions which tell the tale of centuries of history and of the work of man in the Pistoia Apennines, where its particular environmental and historical features have greatly conditioned the economy and the culture of its inhabitants. Ironworks, water mills, glaciers and an extraordinary naturalistic heritage are waiting for you and will captivate you in its authentic time capsule, in a continuous journey between the past and the present.

Information point of Palazzo Achilli

The iron processing

The nature

The popular religiosity

The everyday life

The stone processing

Info

Ecomuseo della Montagna Pistoiese