The Landscape Museum in Castelnuovo Berardenga has been located since 1999 in a late-19th-century building previously used as the public slaughterhouse until a few decades ago.   Created in the heart of one of the most typically Sienese and Italian landscapes on the southernmost edge of the Chianti region close to the Crete Senesi, the museum is truly one of a kind.

Its approach to communication has been entirely renovated, and was inaugurated on 3 October 2020.  The exhibits, accessible to various kinds of audiences, present a series of interactive multimedial applications derived from objects used daily—a window, a table, a kitchen cupboard, a pair of binoculars—that accompany the visitor in discovering up-close the economic and anthropic aspects of the countryside, the history of agricultural land and of the share-cropping system, the struggles of farm workers, the changes in methods of cultivating crops, raising livestock, and producing food, all of which have influenced the shape of the territory and affected styles of consumption.

What’s more, the Landscape Museum is equipped with mobile devices to explore the relationship between countryside, art, architecture and literature, and it presents an olfactory station, an educational section, and a space where it is possible to taste local wines as a way of experiencing this part of the world in greater depth.  The visit concludes with a consultaton area dedicated to the Archive of Memory, which gathers together documentation of the history and development of the Chianti countryside, and provides ample room on the first floor for temporary exhibits.