Museo dell' Antica Grancia Rapolano Terme

ORARI DI APERTURA E VISITA:
Monday to Friday at 8 to 14.
TICKETS: Free, free contribution.

After long and delicate works of restoration , the Grancia of Serre di Rapolano has been opened to the public in the new rule of museum. The Museum of the Antica Grancia of the commune of Raploano has been created with the contribution of the Province of Siena. In collaboration with the Monuments and Fine Arts Service and the Councillorship of the Culture of Tuscany. With this operation knot again, in a symbolic way, the thread of a long way of the history not only of the community of Rapolano and Serre, but of the whole province, which has taken important pages of its history from the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala and the system of the Grance. Some historic notices: its creation began in the XIII century and around the XIV century the complex had already the aspect of a continuous block which still keeps. Between the end of the XIV century and the beginning of the XV century it was partly turned into a fortress. Between 1521 and 1531 the deputation rooms of the Grancia and the main room were retouched. A new chapel was created near the Medieval one. Around 1575 it was built the big three-floors building which stretches near the second courtyard of the Grancia. The interventions of the last centuries reflect the functional character which the building got with the alienation of 1790. It is an important historic and cultural heritage which represented the centre of the local agricultural production, which was able to guarantee a part of the food for the sienese hospital. The Grancia was a store of wheat and also for the production of wine and olive oil. Just in order to keep all these functions, the Museum of the Antica Grancia provided for an articulated path. On the inside there is a sector called “oil’s museum” which is dedicated to the olive growing and the cycle of oil, which uses spaces and machineries of an old oil-mill. In these rooms there are some panels about the cultivation and production of the olive oil, which in the XX century was kept in some jars. Another sector of the museum holds the Centre of Documentation of the Grance. In a wing of the building, four multimedia-stations allow the visitors to know, by means of specific hypertexts, the happenings of the Grancia and the system of the Grance of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. It is also possible to make a virtual visit in the main architectonic structures of the building.