Although documents and some remains indicate that a construction already existed on the site in the year 1000, the Villa Celle and the chapel next to it were built, in their present form, in the late seventeenth century by Cardinal Carlo Agostino Fabroni from Pistoia. In the 1800s the property was acquired by the Caselli family who commissioned local architect Giovanni Gambini to create an English-style park behind the villa.

Extending over an area of roughly sixty acres, the park is an extraordinary example of the Romantic ideal of nature; it includes a number of nineteenth-century follies such as the Aviary designed by the poet/architect Bartolomeo Sestini, the Tea House, the Egyptian Monument, two small lakes with crags and waterfall. Today these constructions seem prophetic forerunners of the installations of contemporary art that have been built in recent years.

"Thirty years of constant engagement and experience have brought us to the conclusion that site specific art, if created according to the ethics of working in nature, is a viable aid in defending the landscape. To avoid impoverishing the art work’s poetic power, nature must be scrupulously safeguarded and kept as closely as possible to the way it was when the art work was created."

Giuliano Gori in "Historia y naturaleza: la Coleccion Gori", IVAM, Valencia, 2003.

The site specific projects at Celle always develop in a certain order: the artists are invited to work here, then they choose a space, either indoors or outdoors, where they create their art work. The piece remains a permanent part of the Gori Collection at Celle, and it achieves its full meaning only in this context. It is this way of working that gave rise to the important experience of site specific art at Celle.

The idea of site-specificity is fundamental for all the projects carried out here. After the invited artist chooses the place where he wants to create his artwork, he carefully analyzes all the elements that condition the site (climate, light, vegetation, to name just a few). When the site specific collection got underway in 1981, a set of rules was drawn up, especially with regard to the ethics of working in nature. The artist must in no way tamper with the vegetation or the ground conformation and must absolutely not try to overwhelm the natural environment. Moreover the project should contain all those elements useful for confronting the spirit of Romanticism that connotes the park. Some art works, by contrast, have been carried out in the farmland adjacent to the park, in an area where the artists have had more chance to form the landscape with their art.

Working at Celle and finding ties to the place’s history, has given a number of artists the chance to interact with the artistic and cultural heritage of Tuscany. For example Robert Morris’s striped white and green marble Labyrinth refers to Tuscan Romanesque church façades or the work by Anne & Patrick Poirier highlights the perfect fusion between natural setting and the park’s nineteenth century environment. Dennis Oppenheim and Alice Aycock juxtaposed modern and historical technology, referring to such figures as Leonardo and Galileo. Less monumental works, for example by Marta Pan or Dani Karavan, trace minimal but meaningful signs, integrated with the landscape. There are also a number of works that can only be fully understood through the viewer’s active participation: works to be experienced include the Pathway of Love by George Trakas and My Sky Hole by Bukichi Inoue.