Museo Stibbert, Florence

Museo Stibbert is a museum housed in the former villa of Frederick Stibbert, devoted to objects gathered from across the world. The villa contains 57 rooms, and its walls carry leather coverings and tapestries among paintings, furniture, porcelain, crucifixes and other artefacts. Stibbert created this private collection from his passion for collecting, then left the villa, park and contents to Florence after his death in 1906, bringing the house into public life.

The outstanding focus is arms and armour: about 16,000 pieces from European, Oriental, Islamic and Japanese traditions, spanning the 15th to the 19th century. In the cavalcade room, 14 mounted knights and 14 foot soldiers appear in armour with weapons, turning the hall into a staged procession. The Japanese section holds over 80 suits of samurai armour and hundreds of swords.

As you look through the rooms, the crowded arrangement matters: paintings, furnishings and armour share an interior designed to make collecting itself feel theatrical. Giuseppe Poggi expanded the villa as the collections grew, working with Gaetano Bianchi and the sculptor Passaglia. What began as Stibbert’s home now presents his remarkable accumulation as a museum, with the armoured figures providing its most dramatic scene.