Santa Croce sull’Arno | Villa Pacchiani

The Villa Pacchiani Centre for Expressive Activities, the former private home of Geremia Pacchiani, has three floors with a garden around it, overlooking the Arno River along the road to Castelfranco di Sotto. The Centro Espositivo di Arte Contemporanea occupies the first floor, while the second houses various subjects involved in expressive activities. The ground floor constitutes the Multipurpose Centre and is used for seminars, meetings, small artistic residencies and temporary events organised by associations or other entities in the area.

Villa Pacchiani possesses a nationwide collection of graphic works: the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe. This is a collection of drawings and graphics born in 1992 thanks to an initial donation by Tono Zancanaro, implemented through donations by artists and with the works participating in the biennial Santa Croce Grafica award.

Worthy of note is a collection of ex libris, small graphic works by international artists, exhibited at the Villa on the occasion of an exhibition and kept in the Cabinet since 2002. The interest aroused by this genre led to the establishment of another biennial prize, this time an international one, the Santa Croce Prize for Ex Libris, Small Graphics, also intended to enrich the Collection.