The Uffizi Gallery, one of the world’s finest museums, traces its origins to 1560 when Cosimo I de’ Medici commissioned Giorgio Vasari to plan a large palace with two wings, on the river and almost in the air, to house the Florentine State’s administrative and judicial offices (known as “Uffizi”).
Vasari was also responsible for the building, five years later, of an overhead corridor passing above Ponte Vecchio and the Church of Santa Felicità, to link the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace, the new residence of the Medici family, ending in the Boboli Gardens.
The true nucleus of the gallery, however, was created by Francis I, Cosimo’s son, who, after transforming the top floor of the Uffizi into a place where one could stroll, with paintings, statues and other objects of value, commissioned Buontalenti to create a gallery to hold furnishings and works of art. Continue reading Uffizi Gallery – Florence
Follow Us!