Considered one of the foremost artists and sculptors of the early-twentieth century, Libero Andreotti was born in Pescia in 1875. His sculptures and paintings are part of public and private art collections across the world.

To celebrate their homegrown, international talent, the town of Pescia opened a museum in 1992 which offered an interesting itinerary through Andreotti’s plaster artworks, which he had made to then be translated into bronze or marble. Cast along traditional ideas of beauty, these models can seem rather academic in style, but nonetheless illustrate a heightened sense of naturalness which runs through much of Andreotti’s work. The main themes of his art are here, moving between labour and pain, joy and enjoyment.

On the first floor of the museum are Andreotti’s monumental works, while on the second a handful of his more formal works are showcased. Among these is the ‘Le nouveau né’, where two hands hold up a newborn child, symbol of life and the first step in the human story; as well as the “Danzatrice con la Maschera di Medusa” (‘A dancer with the mask of Medusa’), which is a synthesis of movement that does not exasperate the lines and composition. The Gipsoteca is located in the Palagio, the ancient seat of the Podestà, part of which dates back to the 13th century. After being rebuilt in the fifteenth, on account of a change in its function, it underwent a number of renovations between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, which turned it into a suitable museum space.