The institution of a museum at the Oratorio delle Grazie is dated back to 1864.
The institution of a museum at the Oratorio delle Grazie is dated back to 1864. During that year in the sacristy of the Oratorio delle Grazie were gathered the most valuable paintings of urban churches. The concentration of the main work of art in the Oratory prevented the otherwise probable dispersion of the urban artistic heritage. The museum was completely reordered in 1959 thanks to Luciano Berti that has published the first catalogue.
In most recent years the numerous restorations to monumental buildings of San Giovanni and surroundings, cured by the Supervision of Arezzo, have directly interested the Museum of Basilica and the works of art that are preserved in it. Some works of art of the museum were brought back to their original collocation: that’s the case of the Triptych of Giovanni del Biondo replaced behind the major altar of S.Lorenzo church. For reasons of safety and conservation, vice versa, other paintings were placed in the rooms of the museum, first of these is the Annunciazione of Beato Angelico from the cloister of Montecarlo. The Museum of Basilica that reopened in 1990, currently exhibit 14 paintings. 11 of these belong to the artistic community of the florentine fifteenth century. Then the collection of the museum immediately underline a characteristic feature of the artistic history of the Valdarnese center, the narrow relation with the Florentine figurative community.

Among the works of art preserved in this venue the most famous is the Annunciazione of Beato Angelico (around 1423), an early work of art that comes from the church of San Giovanni Battista of the Franciscan cloister of Montecarlo.