FLORENTINE MUSEUMS

MUSEUMS

Florence preserves an exceptional heritage as a testimony of  its centuries-old culture. The museums of Florence, famous all over the world, are a unique stage for Art lovers… discover what is the one you like the most! 

• Uffizi Gallery is currently home to an immense artistic heritage, including thousands of paintings ranging from medieval times to the modern era, as well as a vast number of ancient sculptures, miniatures, and tapestries.
  There is also a renowned collection of self-portraits, which continues to grow with the purchase and donation of works by contemporary artists, as well as another very important collection, the Gallery of Drawings and Prints.

• Accademia Gallery. It was erected where there once stood the ancient San Matteo monastery and San Niccolò di Cafaggio convent, which occupied the entire block between Piazza Santissima Annunziata and Via Ricasoli. The immense setting resembles a Latin church in the form of a cross.

• Palatine Gallery. For three centuries, until the Grand Duchy of Tuscany became a part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1859, the palace was the site of the most important events of the Medici family, followed by those of the Asburgo-Lorena family beginning in 1736. The most significant portion of the Palatine Gallery is housed in the six rooms overlooking Palazzo Pitti and the rooms to the back of the palace that served as the winter apartment of the Medici grand dukes in the palace’s north wing. At the end of the 18th century, after falling into disuse, these rooms began to be used to display the most important paintings (at the time numbering around 500) in Palazzo Pitti, most of which came from the Medici family collections.

• The Gallery of Modern Art and The Costume Gallery is housed on the top floor of the Pitti Palace, with a splendid view of the hill and Boboli Gardens. Many of the thirty magnificent rooms housing the collection were decorated in the 19th century during the period of the last grand dukes of the Lorraine dynasty, Ferdinando III and Leopoldo II.

• Silver Museum. The Silver Museum is housed in magnificently frescoed rooms formerly the summer apartments of the grand dukes. The largest and most sumptuously decorated room, the former Silver Chamber, is decorated with huge frescoes carried out on the occasion of the wedding of Ferdinando II and Vittoria della Rovere in 1635, who are depicted in the large vault composition by Giovanni da San Giovanni.

• Bargello Museum is housed in the former Palace of the Capitain of the People. According to Vasari, the original core, dating to 1255, was built following a design by a certain Lapo, father of Arnolfo di Cambio, and corresponds to the site overlooking Via del Proconsolo: this was the city’s oldest seat of government.

• Cenacles. Originally the refectory of the Vallombrosan abbey of San Salvi, the Cenacolo dates to the early 16th century. Frescoed by Andrea del Sarto between 1511 and 1527, it was used by the enclosed nuns of Beata Umiltà until the early 19th century.
  Following the suppression of religious orders during the 19th century, it became the property of the state and was turned into a storehouse…

• Boboli Garden. The restoration under the Lorraine family restored the original formal appearance of the Boboli Gardens. In 1834, under Leopoldo II, the labyrinths were destroyed to make way for a wide avenue suitable for carriages, following the design of Pasquale Poccianti.
  During the 19th century, the garden provided the backdrop for spectacular open-air entertainment.

• Medici Chapels are a vast complex of chapels of great historical and architectural interest. The large crypt, which holds the tombs of the Medici family, was built following a design by Buontalenti.
  The underground chambers of the Church of San Lorenzo, restored after the flood, hold the simple and suggestive Tomb of Cosimo the Elder, inserted into the central pillar, and the Tomb of Donatello, whose plaque was placed there during a later period (18th century).

• San Marco Museum occupies the oldest part of a Dominican monastery rebuilt by Michelozzo during the decade from 1436 to 1446 by appointment of Cosimo de’ Medici the Elder.
  Michelozzo attempted to use as much as possible the walls of the old building to create a monastery whose rooms and layout are in line with completely modern criteria of functionality, still recognisable today.
  Overall, the building is a monumental complex with all the sobriety and elegance typical of Florentine Renaissance architecture.

• Archaeological Museum The museum’s most famous work, the bronze Greek statue known as the Idolino, is housed in the Room of the Idolino.
  Displayed in the Bronze Gallery are three large Etruscan bronzes: the statue of Minerva, the famous Wounded Chimera of Bellerophon, from the 5th century BC, and the Harranguer, a monumental funerary statue from the 3rd century.

• Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure. The museum was founded in 1588 by the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, who established a workshop to produce the rare or precious stones for the decoration of the Chapel of Princes. In 1796, Pietro Leopoldo had the Opificio transferred to its present headquarters in Via degli Alfani.

• Medici Villas are a series of rural building complexes near Florence which were owned by members of the Medici family between the 15th century and the 17th century. The villas served several functions: they were the country palaces of the Medici, scattered over the territory that they ruled, demonstrating their power and wealth. They were also recreational resorts for the leisure and pleasure of their owners; and, more prosaically, they were the centre of agricultural activities on the surrounding estates.

• Palazzo Strozzi Foundation. Since its founding in July 2006, the key challenge of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi has been to bring an international approach to making culture in Florence, to provide a platform for experimentation, to provide a place for debate and discussion, to create new synergies with other cultural players, to be a catalyst for cultural change – in short, to ‘think global, act local’. In the past year the Fondazione has found several other ways to express this double mission of bringing international level cultural events to Florence, and giving the Palazzo Strozzi back to the city.