Buonconvento Museums

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Buonconvento’s Museo d’Arte Sacra della Val d’Arbia is well worth a visit as it is among the better small art museums in Tuscany, but delightfully free of crowds, an opportunity to view the art unencumbered and in the local context where it was produced. The museum boasts a series of masterpieces by artists of the Sienese school, collected from small churches all around the Val d’Arbia. Among the most precious are a Madonna and Child by Duccio da Buoninsegna and another by Pietro Lorenzetti. One room is dedicated to works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, representing artists including Bartoleomeo di David and Francesco Vanni. Many works highlight the greatness of the Sienese school in the 1500s, with artists Rutilio Manetti and Bernardino Mei among others. Open Tuesday / Thursday / Saturday from 10-12, Saturday from 2-4, and Sunday from 9-1. 0577.809075

The Museo Etnografico della mezzadria is a quite exceptional museum offering a look at the old tenant farming system of the area. This becomes especially apt when you remember that Borgo Finocchieto refers to a village (borgo) based around the production of fennel (finocchio) whose roots are a staple vegetable to the Italian diet, and whose seeds stud the local salami. The mezzadria system operated based on a contract whereby the proprietor owned fifty percent of the production by peasant farmers living on the land. The system lasted well into the 1950s, when mechanization replaced many a job and droves of people abandoned farms for industrial jobs. The museum offers a video explaining the system, in Italian, but worth watching nonetheless, and various interactive features downstairs, where life size statues of farmers and proprietors tell you about life from their personal points of view. Displays highlight various aspects of the sharecropping life, from the harvest to special feasts and festivals. Upstairs, displays demonstrate the common living quarters of such farmers. This is a unique opportunity to witness what the very inside of Finocchieto might have looked like as few as fifty years ago. Open Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday from 10 to 6.