Tuscany is renowned all over the world for its gorgeous landscapes, its excellent cuisine and its numerous cities of art, rich in monuments and museums.

Museums can be considered the true guardians of the historical roots of a town or region. That is why besides the most famous museums, including the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, the Centro per l`Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, the Complesso Museale di Santa Maria della Scala in Siena and the Museo dell`Opera del Duomo in Pisa, that house the masterpieces of many important Italian and foreign artists, many other museums and exhibitions are worth a visit, sites and places that are strictly connected to the towns that host them, such as the Museo del Cristallo in Colle Val d`Elsa, the Museo della Vite e del Vino in Scanzano, the Mostra di Vita Artigiana e Contadina in Scarperia and the museums of the various "contrade", or city wards, in Siena.

Introduced in France in the 1970s, the term ecomuseum represents a new idea of interpretation of cultural heritage, which focuses not only on everyday-life objects but also on the architecture, landscape and oral traditions of a specific territory. Various ecomuseums have been created in Tuscany with the intent to preserve different areas and their traditions: the most famous is certainly the Ecomuseo della Montagna Pistoiese in the province of Pistoia, but the Ecomuseo dell`Alabastro in Castellina Marittima, Santa Luce and Volterra (Pisa) is worth a mention too.

The following pages, in which the museums of Tuscany are listed by province, are dedicated to those who want to take advantage of their holidays in Tuscany to discover the many less-renowned but nevertheless interesting treasures housed in the most beautiful region of Italy.