Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery (Galleria degli Uffizi) is the most visited Italian museum and the 11th art museum in the world, by the number of visits, with over 3 million visitors in 2016. Situated near Piazza della Signoria, in the historical center of Florence, the museum houses a collection of priceless works of art, most of them from the period of the Italian Renaissance.

SHORT HISTORY

The building of the Uffizi Gallery was erected starting with 1560, at the request of Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de’ Medici. The original architect was Giorgio Vasari, one of the leading architects of the 15th century.

The initial role of the building was to shelter the municipal offices (uffizi), hence the name, but for the next two hundred years the space brought together under one roof the art collections of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany.

In 1737, the last member of the Medici family, Anna Maria Luisa, decided to leave the art collections to the city of Florence. In 1769, the place was opened to the public, the first in Europe to be called a “museum”.

ART

The art inside the Uffizi includes ancient and modern paintings and sculptures, precious furnishings, clothes, jewellery, fabrics of all types, rugs, books and many others. The museum is a gallery of wonders, full of masterpieces, set out in chronological order, from the 13th to the 18th centuries, with the addition of an archaeological collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures.

The gallery hosts some of the most beautiful paintings by Sandro Botticelli (Primavera and The Birth of Venus), Raffaello Sanzio, Tiziano Vecellio (Venus of Urbino), Caravaggio (Bacchus), Rembrandt, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giotto and Cimabue, along with sculptures by Baccio Bandinelli and other Greek and Roman sculptures (such as the famous Venus de’ Medici).

HOW TO GET THERE

The Uffizi Gallery is located about 1.3 kilometers away from the Santa Maria Novella railway station. The nearest bus stop is Ponte Vecchio, on Line C3 and D, located about 120 meters away from the museum. If you want to find the Uffizi Gallery on foot, use the map below.