Museo Horne

The first room of the Horne Museum in Florence.

A private museum in Florence with works by Giotto and Botticelli

Giotto's St. Stephen (1320–25).

Of the city's several small once-private collections, the one formed by Englishman Herbert Percy Horne and left to Florence in his will has perhaps the best individual pieces.

The best works are a St. Stephen by Giotto and Sienese mannerist Domenico Beccafumi's weirdly colored tondo of the Holy Family.

As for the rest of it, the bulk of the Horne collection consists of frankly mediocre paintings by very good artists—Botticelli, Masaccio, Flilippo Lippi, Flilippino Lippi, Bernardo Daddi, Benozzo Gozzoli, and Dosso Dossi.

They are all housed in this 15th-century palazzo designed by Cronaca (not Sangallo, as had once been believed), and the collections are left—unlabeled—just as Horne originally arranged them. This makes finding the ones you want to see a bit of a treasure hunt.

Note: The reference numbers on the handout they give you to puzzle out which work with which correspond to the stickers on the wall, not the numbers on the frames (relics of older cataloging systems).