Stibbert Museum– The Japanese Rooms
Heritage & Culture
Florence | Italy
2017
Photo
Alessandro Maurelli
The enthusiastic XIX century collector Frederick Stibbert dedicated almost fifty years to finishing the greatest project of his life: to transform his Florence home Villa di Montughi into “his museum”. The Stibbert Museum is home to a vast collection of around 50.000 works of art and antiquities mostly related to the military world and kinds of hunting, the most interesting of which is nineteenth century eclecticism.
The museum is spread around the different rooms in the Villa, four of which are dedicated to Japanese armoury: around 95 suits of armour as well as helmets, swords, weapons and various items of furniture, artefacts of great artistic and historical value that are part of one of the most complete and conspicuous collections outside Japan.
The “Japanese rooms” in fact recently underwent restructuring work sponsored by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, to return the rooms to their original glory and allow access to the priceless heritage they hold in a more enjoyable way. It was here that Targetti provided the entire lighting system.
