Frederick Stibbert

He was the son of Thomas Stibbert (1771-1847), an English military colonel of the Coldstream Guards, and Giulia Cafaggi (1805-1883), a young Tuscan woman.

[2][1] Stibbert's life was always divided between Florence, where he was born, a city to which he was linked because of his affections and passions, and England, where he studied, a country to which he was bound by his work.

In particular for each type of weapon Stibbert thought of some real scenographic contexts: he studied appropriate mannequins on which to mount arms and armor and set up and decorated the rooms in order to make them suitable to what was contained.

Sometimes Stibbert was accused of being a "forger" because his group of craftsmen (a chief gunsmith and five workers) completed armor and operated restorations in an arbitrary manner.

In this will he expressed the desire that his collections (over 50,000 pieces) and the villa Montughi were established in a museum open to the public, but with the clause that the original location was respected.

The British government was appointed as the first legatee, with the possibility, however, of withdrawing to the advantage of the city of Florence, which in fact took possession of it in 1908, establishing the Stibbert Opera Museum Foundation.