Museo Horne

Dark terracotta floors, leaded glass windows and coffered ceilings set the scene at this museum in the Santa Croce neighborhood. A visit to this collection is akin to stepping back in time and being invited into the home of a Renaissance patrician. At the turn of the twentieth century, Herbert Percy Horne, a transplanted British scholar, bought and lovingly restored the former Palazzo dei Corsi to its fifteenth-century splendor. Today, it serves as the backdrop to Horne’s extensive collection of fine and decorative arts. The pieces, including masterful works from the fifteenth and sixteenth century, are displayed without labels or Plexiglas partitions, so you feel like you’re strolling through someone’s personal collection. Saint Stephen, a painting by Giotto, is a major treasure, as are two figurative works by Medici court sculptor Giambologna and a colorful tondo depicting the Holy Family by the Renaissance-Mannerist painter Beccafumi.