The Famous painter and antiquarian Elia Volpi donated Palazzo Vitelli alla Cannoniera to the town in 1912 and the Pinacoteca Comunale found a home in its elegant rooms. The building date from serveral periods but was completed in the early 1500’s, it is a namedafter the foundary and cannon stone that were in the area.

Alberto Burri created a series of large works between 1979 and 1993 and these are on display in the Tabacco drying rooms.

These huge construcitions were built the 50’s for drying the locally grown tropical tabacco, but they fell into disuse in the 70’s. Burri used them as a workshop from 1978 onwards. In 1989 the Fondazione acquired the whole area and in1990 thee museum space was opened to the public.

The big pavilions have all been painted in black as Burri requested and contain 128 large works that are split up into the following series: The journey (1979), Orsanmichele (1980), Sestante (1982), Red and Black (1983-1984), T Cellotex (1975-1984), Annotarsi (1985-1987), Doesn’t love Black (1988), Large Blacks (1988-1990), Metamorfotex (1991) e Black and Gold (1992-1993).