Vasari Corridor The Corridor was built by Giorgio Vasari in only five months in the 1564 for celebrating the wedding between Francesco I de' Medici and Giovanna of Austria; the Corridor link the Pitti Palace, where the Duke resided, with the Uffizi where he worked.
It is a covered walk of about a kilometre in length that starts from the West part of the Gallery Corridor, heads the Arno, follows the river as far as the Ponte Vecchio, and crosses the Old Bridge passing on top of the famous shops.
The Corridor was restored and reopened to the customers in 1973 but can only be visited by appointment or to groups. From the windows of the Corridor the visitor can enjoy some magnificent panorama of Florence an ...
Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology Founded in 1869 by the famous anthropologist Paolo Mantegazza, this was the first of its kind in Italy.
It is in Palazzo Nonfinito which was begun in 1593 to the design of Bernardo Buontalenti and carried on but not completed by G. Battista Caccini, and subsequently by Cigoli in the early seventeenth century.
The material it contains relates to the habits and customs of the different parts of the world and collections illustrative of the different races: harnasses, straw and wooden containers, necklaces and amulets from Africa, musical instruments, ceramics and idols from Asia and the Polynesian Isles, costumes, arrows and boats from China, New Guinea, the Indies and so on.
Among the curi ...
Alinari Museum of the History of Photography
Alinari Museum of the History of Photography The Fratelli Alinari Museum of History of Photography was inaugurated in 1985.
The first in Italy and one of the fourteen in all the world, it is today the only national institution devoted exclusively to photographic exhibitions.
The Alinari Museum carries out an important preservative function; in fact it takes care of about 350,000 positives, old proofs, vintage prints, printed on albumin, bromide, salt paper, calotypes, daguerrotypes, ambertypes and stereoscopies.
Here are exhibited the "collections" of Malandrini, Palazzoli, Zannier, Gabba and the signatures are present of the greatest photographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Alinari, Anderson, Caneva, Nunes V ...
The Palatina Gallery Museum
The Palatina Gallery Museum The Palatina Gallery and Real Apartments are situate inside of Pitti Palace (plan by Filippo Brunelleschi), residence of the Granduchi of Tuscany; first The Medici Family, then the Lorena and subsequently the King of Italy.
The Palatina Gallery is situated in the left part of the Palace and was created between the end of XVIII the Century and first decades XIX century by the Lorena that placed in the rooms works of the Medici collections. The beautifulst collection that comprises works of illustrious artists like Raffaello, Rubens, Caravaggio, Tiziano, Peter from Cortona and of other Italian and European masters of the Rinascimento and the 1600's.
The Palatine Gallery in the Pitti Pal ...
The Opificio delle Pietre Dure Museum
The Opificio delle Pietre Dure Museum The famous Opificio (workshop), founded in 1588, has provided decorations in semi-precious stone (pietre dure) for many important churches, palaces and museums in Florence and throughout the world -- most notably for the Cappella dei Principi in the Medici Chapels. A small museum displays examples from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as tools once used in the workshop.
In the Museum attached to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure or hard stones workshop is concentrated all that remains of the former grand ducal workshops created by Cosimo I de' Medici, who turned his family's collecting passion to political ends even in this field of activity.
During the sixteenth century, Co ...
Museum of Palazzo Davanzati
Museum of Palazzo Davanzati The Davanzati Palace, built by the Davizzi around the mid-fourteenth century, passed to the Davanzati at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and remained in their hands until 1838 when it was divided up into flats and suffered severe damage. Early in this century it was bought and restored first by the antique dealer Elia Volpi and then by Leopold Bengujat who tried to restore something of its original flavour with theatrical gusto. The most important feature of the building is its architecture, a unique example of a domestic building of the fourteenth century which reveals the transition from the medieval tower house to the Renaissance palace. Its facade consists of three arches, origin ...
San Marco Museum
San Marco Museum The Museum of San Marco in Florence occupies the spaces of of the Dominican convent that has been reconstructed by Michelozzo in approximately 10 years from 1436 following a assignment of Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici. Michelozzo is successful to create an absolutely modern and evocative atmosphere. The convent had a role very important in the religious and cultural life of the city as it testifies also the vicissitude of friar Gerolamo Savonarola.
The reputation of the museum is due above all to the paintings of Angelico Beato that frescoed many atmospheres of the convent. Important are also the works of Frà Bartolomeo, and the section dedicated to reperti coming from from demolished buil ...
Stibbert Museum
Stibbert Museum The Museo Stibbert in composed by sixty rooms and contain the collection of Federico Stibbert; weapons and ancient armour, jewellery and furnishings.
Of particular interest is the celebrated Cavalcade, made up of fourteen armed knights wearing sixteenth-century costumes.
Via F. Stibbert 26 - Florence
Openings: weekdays 9am - 1pm, holidays 9am - 12.30pm ...
Medici Chapels Museum
Medici Chapels Museum The museum of the Cappelle Medicee of Florence occupies a part of the beautifulst complex of the basilica of Saint Lorenzo. In the Church of Saint Lorenzo were buried members of the Medici family at the end of the first half of XV Century. The basements of the church of Saint Lorenzo were restore after the alluvium of 1966 and guard the rip ofCosimo il Vecchio, inserted in the pillar they centers, and the rip of Donatello.
The museum is famous in the world for the "Sagrestia Nuova" an atmosphere realized by Michelangelo in order to accommodate the rips of Lorenzo and Giuliano dei Medici; one of the greater work of architecture and sculpture of the Italian Rinasciment.
The Cappelle Medi ...
Horne Museum
Horne Museum The Horne Museum takes its name from the English collector Herbert P. Horne (1864-1916) who left his palace and his collections of a lifetime to the Italian State.
This palace had belonged to the Albertis and then the Corsis who gave it its present appearance at the end of the fifteenth century. With its balanced and elegant exterior and its restrained courtyard.
The museum reflects its owner's taste in layout; Horne was a man of letters, an architect and a critic of some standing who came to Florence at the end of the last century to study the Italian Renaissance. He particularly favoured works of art, furniture, ornamental and useful household objects, the contents in fact of the type of ...
Uffizi Gallery
Uffizi Gallery The Uffizi Gallery of Florence is one of the more famous museums of the world. Thanks to its extraordinary collections of paintings and ancient statues are the main tourist attraction to Florence. The Uffizi accommodates a great artistic patrimony, it comprises pictures from the medieval age to that modern, a great number of ancient sculptures and of miniature.
The Uffizi Gallery collections of paintings of the 1300's and the Rinascimento contain some absolute works of the art of all the times. Between the artists who with their works have contributed to impreziosire the Uffizi Gallery in Florence we can remember Giotto, Simone Martini, Angelic Blessed soul, Piero della Francesca, Bottic ...
The Museum of Carriages
The Museum of Carriages The Museum of Carriages situated in the projecting wing to the right of the Pitti Palace preserves a fine collection of carriages once belonging to the Medici, Lorraine and Savoy Houses.
These objects, conceived as functional rather than as works of art, convey an impression of the atmosphere of luxury and fashion characteristic of court life through the centuries.
The museum is at present closed to the public for restoration and refitting. ...
Botanical Museum The Botanical Museum as such has existed since 1842, a fairly late date in comparison with the other Florentine museums.
Its formation is essentially the work of the Grand Duke Leopoldo II of Lorraine who profited from the expert help given by the internationally famous botanist Filippo Parlatore (Palermo 1816 - Florence 1877). They gave the already existing collection impetus by the creation of a Herbarium which they wanted to call the 'Central' to indicate its importance as Italy's principal example. And in fact it remained for a long time the richest in Italy and one of the world's best. Parlatore furthered this end by the donation of his own herbarium and a skilful policy of exchanges a ...
Costume Gallery
Costume Gallery The Costume Gallery, a section of the Museo degli Argenti, has been housed since 1983 in the small neoclassic building of the Meridiana of Pitti Palace with access to Boboli garden. The showcases have been arranged in the historical Lorena/Savoy environment furnished with furniture and paintings which reflect the interior decoration carried out in 1861 for the arrival of Vittorio Emanuele II. Through a series of clothes which are characteristic of each period, the exhibition illustrates the evolution of fashion in the 18th century until about 1930. In the wall show cases there can be found accessories and linen. The costumes are changed alternately every two years, with similar and coeval on ...
Geology and Paleontology Museum This is the most important museum of its kind in Italy and includes more than 270,000 examples of animal and vegetable fossils, fossil imprints and rock specimens.
Medici interests again were responsible for its founding, notably in the person of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II.
It was he who in the seventeenth century spurred on the collecting of the remains of vertebrates in the Monte Amiata area and other Tuscan neighbourhoods of geological interest.
Initially gathered in the Pitti Palace then removed to 'La Specola' with all the scientific instruments, only in 1925 did it find a resting place in its present setting.
Enriched by donations and recent discoveries, the collection was rearran ...
Opera del Duomo museum
Opera del Duomo museum The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, which contains important works from the Cathedral (Duomo) of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Baptistery, and Giotto's Bell-Tower, is crucial for an understanding of Florentine sculpture.
Especially worthy of note are the wooden statue of Mary Magdalen, Donatello's masterpiece, and the marble Pieta` by Michelangelo. The Museo also contains a model of the dome by Brunelleschi, and a number of statues which originally formed part of the unfinished facade of the Cathedral, which was demolished in the sixteenth century.
Among the most famous of these is the Madonna and Child by Arnolfo di Cambio.
Piazza del Duomo, 9
Open: 9-18. Closed Sundays. ...
Accademia Gallery The Academy Gallery is situated where a time rose the convents of Saint Matteo and of Saint Niccolò di Cafaggio between the Announced Saintest public square and Ricasoli street.
The Academy Gallery is famous in the world thanks to the presence of sculptures of Michelangelo: the Prisons, the Saint Matteo and in particular the famous David di Michelangelo.
In the Academy Gallery there are important collections of works of art from the Academy of the Design, from the Academy of Fine Arts and convents. The works are constituted by paintings executed by the greater operating masters in Florence between the second half of XIII the Century and the end of XVI the Century.
Between the most fa ...
Archaeological Museum The Museo Archeologico contains one of the most important collections in existence for the study of the art and the civilization of the Etruscans.
Its collections of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities are also considerable.
Because of serious damage caused by the flood of 1966, the rooms on the ground floor are still under restoration.
The Museum of Archeology (Museo Archeologico) is located next to Santissima Annunziata Church in the San Marco District of Florence Italy. It contains Etruscan, Greek, Egyptian and Roman artifacts.
The Archaeological Museum is situated in the Crocetta Palace and contains one of the most important collections of Etruscan art of the world. The Museum ...
Bargello Museum
Bargello Museum The Museum of the Bargello fo Florence conserve extraordinary sculptures and "smaller limbs". The Museum of the Bargello of Florence is situated in an imposing building constructed around to the half of XIII the Century, according to the Vasari, on design of Lapo, father of Arnolfo di Cambio, in order to accommodate the Capitano del Popolo; subsequently center of the podestà and the Council of Justice.
In the 1502 the palace became center of the Council of Justice and the police, whose head was said, exactly, "the Bargello".
In 1786, Peter Leopoldo abolished the capital punishment and the present instruments of torture in the palace were burn. The prisons remained in use until the hal ...
Monumental Apartments
Monumental Apartments The Monumental apartments occupy the right half of the main floor of the Pitti Palace and are an important record of the three main phases of the palace's history.
To the first period (mid-sixteenth to end of the eighteenth century), characterized by the sumptuousness of the Medici court, belong the rooms overlooking the Piazza once occupied by the Grand Ducal heir, with corresponding rooms on the other side for his wife.
Today, they retain the appearance given them by the Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici who lived there until his death in 1713. A few treasures remain from the Medici period, among them the precious ebony and pietra dura holy water stoup of the Grand Duchess Vittoria dell ...
Cenacolo di Andrea del Sarto Museum
Cenacolo di Andrea del Sarto Museum The museum of the Cenacolo di Andrea del Sarto occupies an ancient convent of the Vallombrosani entitled to San Salvi. The name derives from the Cenacolo, a large one frescoes representing the Ultima Cena, situated in the refectory, operates of Andrea del Sarto and considered one of the most important painting of the Rinascimento.
In the large rooms of the convent are exposed important paintings of the first half of XVI the century, that testify the development of the painting in Florence of that period. Between the works more important we can cite Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, Giuliano Bugiardini, Raffaellino del Garbo, Franciabigio, Bachiacca.
In the Refectory Room, we find the large p ...
Modern Art Gallery Museum
Modern Art Gallery Museum The Gallery of Modern Art of Florence was inaugurated in 1924; The Gallery of Modern Art is situated to the last floor of Pitti Palace and is formed from thirty huge rooms that constitute the very large expositive. The rooms of the Gallery of Modern Art were decorated in XIX century to the age of the granduchi Lorenesi.
The Gallery of Modern Art presently occupies the second floor of the Pitti Palace, in the rooms along the facade formerly the Palatine Library and those in the side wings used by the Medici children and retainers. Founded in 1860 and rearranged in 1918, it comprises a large group of works brought from the Academy of Fine Arts at that time. The layout is conditioned by the ...
Silvers Museum
Silvers Museum The museum of Silver of Florence is situated to the flat land of Pitti Palace and occupies the rooms splendidly decorated with frescoes of the XVII century of the summery Apartment of the Granduca Ferdinand II of the Medici.
The museum of Silver conserve the Treasure of the Medici and the Treasure of Salisburgo, composed by sacred and profane silver of the XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries, that they have given the name to the museum. In the Room of the Donations we find one collection of jewels pertaining to periods between the XVIII and XIX the century.
Since 1919 the Museo degli Argenti or Silver Museum has been sited in the ground floor rooms of Palazzo Pitti, originally the grand duca ...
The Museum of the History of Science
The Museum of the History of Science The Museum of the History of Science (Museo di Storia della Scienza) is a fascinating attraction located in the Signoria district of Florence Italy.
The museum is just east of the Uffizi Gallery by the Arno River. It contains Galileo's early telescopes and some of his experiments into gravity etc. The Science Museum also has a great collection of old clocks, bikes, maps and even Galileo's middle finger!
Francesco and Leopoldo of Lorraine also continued this type of collecting in the eighteenth century, with the aid of qualified specialists. In particular the abate Felice Fontana (1730-1805) strengthened the Museum of Physics and Natural Sciences and its adjoining laboratory. It was fro ... READ MORE →
