Comune: | Pistoia |
Località: | Santomato |
In the 15th century this villa and its adjoining land belonged to the Pazzaglia family, but later became the property of the Fabbroni, a cultured noble family from Pistoia, who were responsible for much of the reorganisation of the building and its garden. In the mid-19th century the garden was turned into a romantic park, in a design by the architect Giovanni Gambini. The Brana river, which crosses the area of the park, was used to create a small lake, with an island in the centre, complete with Neoclassical ornamental temple, and a rocky gorge crossed by a bridge onto which a waterfall cascaded. Near the gorge was a neo-Gothic building, known as the Tempietto della Fonte, and a building in the ancient Egyptian style. In 1969, after changing hands several times, Villa Celle was bought by Prato entrepreneur Giuliano Gori, a collector of contemporary art, who over the years brought many works of art here, turning the villa into a fully-fledged open-air museum. Scattered inside the park are works of art by various national and international artists, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alice Aycoch, Luciano Fabro, Dani Karavan, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Fausto Melotti, Robert Morris, Dennis Oppenheim, Pistoletto, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Ulrich Ruckriem, Richard Serra, Mauro Staccioli, George Trakas and many more besides. The park is also home to a large number of trees of various species, such as white fir, chestnut and horse chestnut, white hornbeam, Atlantic and Himalayan cedar, cypress and Lawson cypress, flowering ash, giant arbor vitae, red fir, black and umbrella pine, plane trees, scented American fir, Douglas fir, yew trees, lime trees, elm trees, and a whole range of different kinds of oak: holm-oak, turkey oak, common oak, downy oak, red oak and American oak.