Palazzo Blu

On the Lungarno Gambacorti, the riverside street on Pisa's south bank, one palace stands out for its deep blue façade. Restorers found traces of the colour under later layers, and the 2008 restoration brought the 18th-century shade back. It is usually traced to owners of that period who are said to have been Russian. The building grew out of medieval tower houses, and its formal name still recalls its last private owners, the counts Giuli Rosselmini Gualandi. After years of neglect it was bought in 2001 by the city's savings-bank foundation, now Fondazione Pisa, and opened as an art centre.

The upper floors hold the large temporary exhibitions that draw most visitors. On the main floor is the foundation's own collection, running from the 14th to the 20th century, and its strongest point is a pair of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi from her years in Naples. Clio, Muse of History, from 1632, carries her signature and the date on the open page of the muse's book, with a dedication to a man named Rosières whose identity scholars still debate. The foundation bought it at Christie's in 2004. Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, a canvas more than two and a half metres high, joined it in 2022 from a palace in Palermo, where in the 19th century it had been taken for a work by Luca Giordano.