In 1473, Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri left part of his estate to be used for the education of the young. This bequest was used to open the "Pia Casa della Sapienza", a boarding school with four Chairs: civil law, canon law, logic, and philosophy. The boarding school, which first occupied premises in the houses of the "Spedalingo di San Bartolomeo in Alpi e di San Matteo", was moved in 1533 to the elegant Palazzo della Sapienza, remodelled for its new destination to the design of Giovanni Unghero, where it remained until 1924, the year in which it left this site to the Forteguerriana Library. The school then moved to its present location, in the former "Convento della Sala". Under the Grand Duchy of Peter Leopold, and subsequent to the reform in public education, the "Pia Casa della Sapienza" was united with the Commune, and several municipal normal schools were established. In 1804 the Secondary School was reopened, this time with a larger number of chairs, divided according to sections of study. Up to the early years of the 20th century, the Secondary School was the only school of higher studies in Pistoia. In 1996 the Secondary School was consolidated with the Istituto Magistrale "A. Vannucci" ["A. Vannucci" Teachers' Training School], established in the late 19th century, to form the Istituto "Forteguerri-Vannucci".

The Institute possesses instruments for physics experiments, almost all of them dating from the period ranging from the second half of the 19th century through the first decades of the 20th, as well as apparatus from earlier times, some of it displayed in a special room, some in the corridor leading to the laboratories. Noteworthy among these instruments are a hydrostatic balance with a set of weights and a Ramsden electrostatic machine from the early years of the 19th century.