At the Prato Textile Museum, "The Style of the Tsar. Italian and Russian art and fashions between the 14th and the 18th century" exhibition brings together more than 130 paintings, costumes and fabrics from the leading museums in Russia - the Hermitage and the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin Museum in Moscow - as well as numerous Italian institutions, such as the museums of the Polo Museale Fiorentino.

The exhibition illustrates the origin and development of cultural, commercial and diplomatic relations between Italy and ancient Muscovy through the privileged channel of commerce of Italian textiles and luxury goods.

The first part gives an overall view of Italian silk production from the late 14th century to early 16th century, displaying masterworks of textiles and painting illustrating the importance of these fabrics in the social and cultural context of the times.

The essential nucleus of the exhibition is devoted to the relations existing between Italy and Russia in the period between the 14th century, moment of the earliest contacts between European merchants and the ports on the Black Sea, and the early 18th century when thanks to Peter the Great the Russian Empire opened up to western ways of life. Despite the Italy gradual decline in silk production during the first half of the 18th century, Italian art still remained popular and, thanks to collectors, many important masterpieces reached Russia. Many of these are now incorporated in the collections of Russia's leading museums.

The exhibition ends with the display of the altarpiece of the Circumcision, originally painted by Cigoli for the church of San Francesco in Prato and transferred in the 19th century to the Hermitage.