This fabulous Baroque palace is the former home of the Mansi family, a rich family of textile merchants who built it in 1616 but eventually donated it to the city in 1965. Many of the interior decoration and furnishings remain in place, giving you a fascinating insight into how the rich in Lucca lived at that time.
The interior is lavishly decorated in the Baroque style and much of the furnishings and furniture remain intact. It is divided into four different areas: The Italian Old Masters, with paintings by Tintoretto, (A Portrait of a Venetian Senator, 1518-1594), Ghirlandaio, Veronese and Titian, Guido Reni and Domenichino;
The Flemish Old Masters with paintings by Paul Brill, Jan Gossaert (Madonna of Cherries); and Tuscan paintings which include those of Domenico Beccafumi (Continence of Scipione, 1486-1551), Agnolo Bronzino (Portrait of Don Garzia de' Medici child, 1503-1572), Pontorno (Portrait of a Young Man, 1494-1566), Andrea Del Sarto (The Virgin and St. Anne).
There are also 19th-century works by Pompeo Batoni, Stefano Tofanelli and Bernardino Nocchi. Moreover, antique tools and textiles including looms, religious vestments, vintage clothes, 17th and 18th century fabrics, give you a useful insight into the hugely profitable textile industry in Lucca at the time.
There is also a collection of paintings which was donated by the Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg Lorraine, father of Ferdinand III of Habsburg-Lorraine who was Grand Duke of Tuscany twice, first from 1790 to 1799 and then from 1814 to 1824.