Villa Brandi - Vignano (SI)

Nestled in the countryside just outside Siena, the villa that belonged to Cesare Brandi is an exceptional house of memories, regularly open to visitors. The art historian, who contributed significantly to the layout and catalogue of the Regia Pinacoteca in the 1930s, chose Vignano as his favourite place of retreat and meeting place with his artist and intellectual friends. He described it as “a piece of my intestine”, with which he had a visceral as well as emotional connection, having spent his childhood summers there with his family. Upon his death in 1988, Brandi left the complex to the Italian State, which took possession of it in 1995. Since 2022, the villa has been part of the National Museums of Siena.

The sixteenth-century structure is probably the work of the renowned architect Baldassarre Peruzzi. The interiors offer an example of the “furnishing” of a Sienese country house from the 16th to the 18th century. The garden and villa house a small selection of paintings and sculptures that Brandi received as gifts from his artist friends, including some of the most important Italian artists of the 20th century (Filippo De Pisis, Giorgio Morandi, Giacomo Manzù, Renato Guttuso, Mario Ceroli, Totj Scialoja, Alberto Burri, Afro, Piero Sadun). Brandi's legacy also includes the library, which remains in its original layout, the archive and a vast photographic collection, both of which are preserved in the rooms of Palazzo Chigi Piccolomini alla Postierla in Siena.