The Centro Pecci is the most important contemporary art museum in Tuscany outside Florence. Founded in 1988 by the Pecci family, Prato's textile dynasty, it has always been committed to living artists and large-scale installations rather than the safe retrospectives that dominate Italian museum programming. The collection includes significant works from the 1960s onward, with particular depth in Arte Povera and post-war Italian art.
The museum was greatly expanded in 2016 with a dramatic curved extension — a ring-shaped structure raised above the ground, designed by the Dutch architect Maurice Nio. The new building reads as a UFO or an orbital ring and has become something of a landmark. The exhibitions programme is genuinely adventurous. Worth checking what's on before you arrive.