Located in the historic center of Pietrasanta, Albergo Pietrasanta has, for thirty years, been a place where contemporary art and hospitality coexist beyond the traditional exhibition model. 

Founded by Rosa and Gilberto Sandretto, collectors active since the 1980s, the project has helped broaden the city’s cultural landscape, accompanying Pietrasanta’s evolution from a center rooted in the artisanal traditions of marble and bronze into an international hub for contemporary art production.

The hotel occupies Palazzo Barsanti Bonetti, a historic estate comprising a manor house and former stables, now connected by a veranda overlooking an inner garden. Restored and converted into a hotel in 1996, the complex retains its high frescoed ceilings and period decorations, while antique furnishings from the family’s properties accentuate its domestic character.

Its story, however, began a few years earlier, in 1992, with an unexpected encounter. Rosa and Gilberto Sandretto had come to Pietrasanta to oversee the creation of a work by Ivan Theimer. “At the time, Theimer’s bookcase was under construction, a piece that would later become part of our collection. It was February, and although I already knew Versilia, I was struck by the mild climate and the tranquility of the place. On a whim, I walked into the historic bar in the square and asked if there was a house for sale. They pointed me to this building. It was love at first sight.”

Rosa Sandretto

“What was meant to be a short stay became the beginning of a new project. But the garden was a jungle, the veranda wasn’t there yet, and the old stables were completely destroyed. It was too big to become just a family home, so we immediately thought of hospitality.”

Hospitality was understood from the very beginning as a form of sharing: opening the palazzo also meant connecting guests with the collection that Rosa and Gilberto were already building.

“On one hand, I had this eighteenth-century palazzo, and on the other, the contemporary art collection. I wondered how they would look together. I started displaying works by Carla Accardi, Giulio Turcato, Mario Nigro, Mario Schifano, Alighiero Boetti, and I saw that it worked. From that moment on, I moved forward, always prioritizing the exhibition of Italian artists. An international public passes through here, and I still think our artists don’t get enough visibility.”

Over time, commissions and site-specific works have been added to this core collection. “Marco Tirelli created a series of works in situ. More recently, Monica Bonvicini designed a work for the building’s elevator, while Loris Cecchini created a large sculpture for the veranda’s outdoor space.”

The dialogue between artworks and surroundings accompanies the guests’ stay. In the reception area, a large canvas by Nicola De Maria dominates the room with its deep blue, echoed by the velvet sofa and the ceiling frescoes. As guests move up toward the rooms, a sequence of large palm trees by Mario Schifano turns the stairwell into a visual progression, in tune with the vertical development of the architecture. Luigi Ontani returns several times, like an apparition, with works scattered throughout the hotel: unexpected, epiphanic, precious presences.

The arrangement of the works reveals a deep understanding of the place and its balances. This sensitivity is also reflected in the continuous transformation of the displays, which extends to the guest rooms as well as the common areas, suggesting that what is visible here is only one part of a much larger collection.

Rosa Sandretto

The collection on display at Albergo Pietrasanta is only part of a story that began more than forty years ago. Before the palazzo, there were encounters with artists, studio visits, and relationships built over time.

“As a collector, I had a great mentor, Luciano Pistoi. I always make a point of remembering him: he was an extraordinary gallerist, a true visionary. Many of my acquisitions stem from what I learned from him. He took me into the studios of artists such as Carla Accardi, Jannis Kounellis, Alberto Burri, and Enrico Castellani...”

A similar story lies behind the installations presented by Gino De Dominicis at the 1993 Venice Biennale, now on display at the hotel.

“My husband bought them directly from Gino after a rather eventful negotiation. He had one specific condition: he wanted the works to be displayed in a public space, visible and lit in a certain way.” To honor that promise, the works travelled for years, appearing at PS1 in New York and in many other international exhibitions. “Then our conservator stopped us: ‘Now they’re staying home,’ she said. And so they came home.”

Over time, this focus on art and artists also translated into institutional engagement. “For fifteen years, I served on the board of PS1 in New York,” she says. In that role, she supported various projects dedicated to the young Italian art scene, including Senso Unico (2007–2008), an exhibition curated by Alanna Heiss that brought together eight contemporary Italian artists at MoMA PS1.

Albergo Pietrasanta continues to evolve through exhibitions and temporary installations curated by Carolina Sandretto, a documentary photographer based between Italy and France. At the entrance, a Sottsass display case presents a collaboration with Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery, known for artist-designed jewelry, with works by Giuseppe Penone and Giulio Paolini, among others.

In the former stables, Arte in vacanza takes shape: a project developed with Milan’s Viasaterna Gallery that places a selection of photographic works on the theme of nature alongside the permanent collection. The exhibition includes works by Stefano Caimi, Alessandro Calabrese, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Teresa Giannico, Guido Guidi, Takashi Homma, Leonardo Magrelli, and Carolina Sandretto herself.

Meanwhile, the collection continues to grow. Just a few minutes from the historic center, Magazzino Pietrasanta was initially conceived as a storage facility for the collection and later transformed into an exhibition space. Its display, curated by Alessandro Rabottini, is periodically reimagined to reflect new acquisitions, creating a circular relationship with the hotel, where works return, move, and form new connections with the spaces.

And who knows—perhaps the collection will soon outgrow its current spaces.

Opening image: Albergo Pietrasanta, 2026. Photo: Carolina Sandretto. Works by Jannis Kounellis (left), Luigi Ontani (bottom), Nicola De Maria (center), and Agostino Bonalumi (right).