The Museo Nazionale delle Arti Naïves “Cesare Zavattini” (“Cesare Zavattini” National Museum of Naïve Art) was founded in 1967, following the first edition of the Prize established by Cesare Zavattini - writer, journalist and screenwriter from Luzzara.

Originally housed in the former Augustinian Convent near the Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Villa Superiore, it was closed after the 2012 earthquake. The Museum is set to reopen soon in the spaces of the Civic Museum on Via Avanzi.

The collection includes about 500 works by both Italian and foreign artists, forming a unique heritage in Italy, entirely devoted to Naïve Art. The Museum is managed by the “Fondazione Un Paese” (“A Land” Foundation), an institution established by the Municipality of Luzzara in 2022. Alongside the permanent exhibition, the Museum features a Laboratorio Didattico (Didactic Laboratory) and an archive of graphic, photographic and bio-bibliographic materials that document the history of Naïve Art in Italy, as well as major photographic projects centered on Luzzara - “Un paese”; “Un paese vent’anni dopo”; “Luzzara. Cinquant’anni e più…” - realized by Paul Strand, Gianni Berengo Gardin and Cesare Zavattini himself.

The Museum collects, catalogues and displays every type of document testifying to Naïve artistic activity at local, national and international levels: paintings, drawings, sculptures, engravings, books, newspapers, magazines, films, photographs, catalogues, magnetic tapes, and slides. Altogether they compose a thematic journey dedicated to this 20th-century artistic poetics, characterized by the original, primitive, and wild genuineness of artistic language, which found a home in the fields of the Bassa Padana - a land resting between Parma and Reggio Emilia, fertile ground where such art could thrive.