The Museum of the 20th Century and the Contemporary in Palazzo Fabroni is named after the noble Pistoiese family that lived there until 1842. It houses the Municipality of Pistoia's permanent collection of modern and contemporary art. Put together from acquisitions an donations as well as the town's original collections, it offers a voyage through art from the 1920sto the present day.
The museum is organized chronologically and by similar groups of works, starting from the ground-floor rooms. In addition to the public areas with an informative video installation on the history of the building, its collections and the new garden, there is the section dedicated to 20th-century art in Pistoia, dating from the second half of the 1920s to the late 1960s.
On the first floor, the large double-height central hall is recognized as a setting for reflecting on art, owing to Claudio Parmiggiani’s imposing "Scultura d’ombra" on the walls. The tour continues with the monographic rooms dedicated to the Pistoiese artists Mario Nigro, Fernando Melani, Gualtiero Nativi and Agenore Fabbri. Then, there
are the collective rooms that host works donated to the Municipality of Pistoia by many of the artists who, since 1990, have participated
in personal or thematic exhibitions at Palazzo Fabroni. This has led to an eloquent voyage through Arte Povera, Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, Visual Poetry and other movements, totally regenerating both language and artistic material.
The spaces on the second floor are used for temporary exhibitions. Beyond the large loggia at the back of the building is an outdoor space that was completely redesigned in recent years as a contemporary “artist’s garden”.