PRATO  — Ten years have passed since the inauguration of the Museum of the Pretorio Palace in Prato, Tuscany. Home to the Civic Msueum since 1912, it opened on 12 April 2014, after many projects, guided by a single objective: to interpret the contemporaneity of all times and become increasingly inclusive.

 “We are celebrating 10 years since the opening of the Palazzo Pretorio Museum with the presentation of a new room, demonstrating that the Pretorio has never stood still,” said Prato mayor Matteo Biffoni. “Exibitions, new rooms, inclusive languages, a cultural hub with particular attention to autism, are testimony to how art is capable of involving everyone with its beauty and its ability to communicate. 

 The Museum celebrated the anniversary by moving 17 15^th and 16^th century works from storage into a new exhibit: ‘From the deposits to the museum: paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.’

 Mayor Biffoni attributed the realization of the new exhibit to the Prato community’s “desire to invest in and enhance the existing heritage.”

 The new exhibit, on the first floor of the recently restored area of the ancient Monte dei Pegni, expands the museum’s offerings with a nucleus of fifteenth-century masters who document the cultural climate reflected in the many workshops active in Florence and in the suburbs; and with the precious collection of Holy Families and Madonnas with Child from the 16th century consisting of ten paintings. 

 The new area is part of a project to expand the museum offering which will soon see two other spaces dedicated, respectively, "Prato before Prato" with archaeological finds from the territory and from the nearby area of Gonfienti, home to an Etruscan settlement from the 6th century BC, also enriched by multimedia content, and to the Risorgimento Museum, with a collection of relics from the ancient Risorgimento Museum which was set up in the Praetorium from the early twentieth century and still preserved in storage. 

 "In these ten years, the Civic Museum of Palazzo Pretorio has become a point of reference not only in the Tuscan panorama,” said Prato’s Councilor for Culture Simone Mangai. The constant work of the museum staff, he said, “has allowed us to establish relationships and consolidate and enrich a priceless heritage. The administration's choice to expand the path of the Collection recovers the idea of the project by Gae Aulenti and Bianca Ballestrero and restores the not only artistic history of our territory with even greater adherence.”

 In Mangani’s presentation of the new exhibition to representatives of the foreign press, he pointed out the installation’s multi-sensory aspect. It is enriched with interactive content, works to touch and listen to, guides in sign language, new multimedia devices.

 The Museum celebrates its tenth anniversary by also offering an original program of events, shows, dance, workshops, music, themed meetings and activities aimed at different audiences. 

 Among others, in collaboration with the Opera Santa Rita Foundation’s Silvio Politano autism center, is the exhibition ‘PretorioAPERTO - 10 years 1000 glances.’ Children on the autism spectrum give visitors their interpretations of the works of the Palazzo Pretorio Museum. 

 Their artistic productions, unpublished and original, are created in collaboration with educators, museum operators and the contribution of the students of the Umberto Brunelleschi Art School in Montemurlo. The exhibition, a space for discussion, knowledge and dialogue with diversity, is free to access from 20 to 29 April.

 With the Prato Card a single ticket is available that allows you to visit the four main museums of Prato: Palazzo Pretorio Museum, Textile Museum, Opera del Duomo di Prato Museum and Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art. A card aimed at everyone, tourists and residents, with offers for young people and families.

 However, Prato also deserves a quick visit of its historic centre, with a walk that can be defined as "Prato Classica - The city of merchants, yesterday and today": Walking itinerary in the city centre. 

 We start from Francesco di Marco Datini, the merchant who founded the first European holding company in the 1400s and who with his legacy contributed to founding the Ospedale Degli Innocenti in Florence, to arrive at the monumental Forma Quadrata with cut by Henry Moore, installed in Prato in 1974, 50 years ago, whose presence represents the tangible sign of the renewed patronage of the Prato textile entrepreneurs of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the cultural and artistic relaunch of the wool city. Not to miss a tour of the ancient church of San Francesco, with its cloister and the Emperor's Castle.