Silent witness of the political, civil and military events of the city, dominating the Piazza del Comune with its austere and imposing bulk, Palazzo Pretorio has been the seat of the court, prisons and foreign magistrates since 1284, already expanded in the fourteenth century. Its soul changed radically in the eighteenth century, when the rooms of the building became administrative offices of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In 1912, its current role as a museum was inaugurated, updated several times until the last regulation in 1998.

An essential stop for anyone visiting Tuscany, the Museum of Palazzo Pretorio in Prato offers the visitor an exhibition itinerary full of masterpieces that traces the history and art of Prato from the fourteenth to the twentieth century . On the ground floor the historic setting, with objects-symbols of the past. The large rooms dedicated to temporary exhibitions introduce the visit of the three upper floors, ordered following an ascending chronological criterion. Works that have marked the art of all time, including the masterpieces of Bernardo Daddi, Donatello, the della Robbia, Giovanni da Milano, Lorenzo Monaco, Filippo and Filippino Lippi, Battistello Caracciolo, Lorenzo Bartolini and Jacques Lipchitz, follow one another in the large halls, enhanced by the layout project by architects Adolfo Natalini, Marco Magni and Piero Guicciardini.