Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in central Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy One of the most important Italian museums, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world, and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance

The current Galleries of the Uffizi form a complex comprising the Statue and Paintings Gallery (former Uffizi Palace), the Vasari Corridor and the Palazzo Pitti collections, located in Florence. This complex is the quantity and quality of the works collected by one of the most important museums in the world. There are the most important collection of Raffaello and Botticelli, as well as the core foundations of works by Giotto, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Pontormo, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Dürer, Rubens and others.

While Palazzo Pitti is focusing on paintings of the sixteenth century and the Baroque (from Giorgione to Tiziano, from Ribera to Van Dyck) but also from the Italian nineteenth and twentieth century, Vasariano corridor is currently part of the Self-portrait Collection (over 1,700) , which will soon be moved to the Statue Gallery. For the self-portraits you will find Holbein, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Reynolds, David, Corot, Ingres, Delacroix, Sargent, Chagall, Ensor etc.

The Gallery of Statues hosts a collection of invaluable artwork, derived as the core of Medici’s collections, enriched through centuries by legacies, exchanges and donations, including a fundamental group of religious works derived from the suppression of monasteries and convents between the 18th and 19th centuries.

Divided in various rooms set up for schools and styles in chronological order, the exhibition shows works from the 12th to the 18th century, with the best collection of Renaissance works in the world. Inside, there are some of the greatest masterpieces of humanity, made by artists from Cimabue to Caravaggio, through Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raffaello, Mantegna, Titian, Parmigianino, Dürer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Canaletto and Sandro Botticelli. Of great value are also the collection of ancient statuary and above all that of the drawings and prints which, preserved in the homonymous cabinet, is one of the most important and important in the world.

The construction was begun in 1560 and realized by adopting the Doric order, according to Vasari, “safer and more firm than any other, […] always liked the Lord Mr. Cosimo” in 1565 already had completed the so-called Long Uffizi and the stretch over the Arno.

The Uffizi Palace is made up of two main longitudinal factory buildings, connected to the south by a shorter side of the same, giving rise to an “U” complex that embraces a square and overlooks prospectively towards Piazza della Signoria, with a perfect shot of Palazzo Vecchio and its tower.

The three corpses have the same module: on the ground floor there is a loggiato architravato covered with barrel vault, consisting of nooks and columns delimited by columns and subdivided into three intercolumns by two columns interposed between pillars; to this module there are three openings in the faux mezzanine above that serve to illuminate the porch and three windows on the first floor which show the alternation between triangular tympanum and curvilinear eaves and are comprised between slopes; Finally, on the top floor, a loggia resumed the tripartite module and later hosted the original Uffizi Gallery.

On the ground floor runs a portico throughout the length of the west and south sides, and on the east side to via Lambertesca; raised on a podium of a few steps, the porch is made up of Doric columns and pillars with niches for statues that support a lintel but is covered with long barrel vaults decorated with relief rectangular frames, which are interconnected by bands designers have a geometric shattered and uniform pattern.

The architraved portico represents a great novelty in the history of architecture, since the medieval porticoes, and then the Renaissance ones, consisted of a series of arches and never of architraves, both in Florence (such as the Porch of the Innocenti Ship) , apart from Michelangelo’s Senate Palace, which is one of the models of the Hamlet project.

On the upper floors there is a form of three panels, three windows with balconies and timpani respectively triangular, circular and again triangular (first floor) and three openings on the upper loggia (now the second floor gallery) divided by two columns. The planes are divided by majestic marcapian frames. Architectural elements are underlined by the use of serene stone (especially that extracted from the valley of the Shelf), which stands on white plaster, according to the most typical Florentine style begun by Brunelleschi.

The short side is characterized by a large arc, a sergiant, framing scenicly the face of the Arno, surmounted by a loggia, open on both the front yard and the Arno, as a true theatrical backdrop, inspired by contemporary scenic realizations. On the ground floor is the statue of John of the Black Bands, a work by Temistocle Guerrazzi. On the first floor the large windows have an archway and in front of the central one, the largest, corresponding to the Verone, there are three statues: Cosimo I standing in Giambologna (1585), alongside the lying personages of Equity and Penalty, both by Vincenzo Danti (1566). In the niches of the pillars of the loggia was designed to insert a series of famous Florentine statues, the construction began only from 1835.

Much original is the portal (“door of the Supplications”) built by Bernardo Buontalenti on Via Lambertesca: it is crowned with a broken tympanum, but for more originality Buontalenti reversed the two halves, obtaining a kind of “eyebrow” tympanic, animalistic and organic of its architecture.

Entrance Vestibule and East Corridor:
The setting, made up of three vestibules, was made at the end of the eighteenth century by the completion of the monumental staircase, the new access to the Gallery, by the will of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. In the first vestibule are marble and porphyry busties of the Medici by Francesco I at Gian Gastone; communicating with this is the rectangular vestibule, decorated in the vault by Giovanni da San Giovanni with mythological Capricci, set with ancient and modern busts; in the elliptical vestibule: Roman statues, sarcophagi and antique reliefs. The door that enters the Gallery, with its sides are two Molos Dogs, Roman copies of the 1st century AD, is topped by Leopold’s bust.

The three corridors that correspond to the three bodies of the palace run along the entire inner side and open the halls on them. They are decorated in fresco ceilings and the large windows reveal their primitive look of covered open loggia.

Today the corridors are home to the collection of ancient statuary, started by Lorenzo the Magnificent, who kept the works in the Garden of St. Mark near the Medici Palace. The collection was expanded by Cosimo I after his first trip to Rome in 1560 when he chose to dedicate the statues to embellish Palazzo Pitti and portraits and busts for Palazzo Vecchio. Finally, it was also raised at the time of Peter Leopold of Lorraine, when they brought to Florence the works of Villa Medici, collected largely by the future Grand Duke Ferdinand I, at the time Cardinal. It is curious to note that such works, which were often distracted by visitors, until the early 19th century were a major reason for visiting the gallery. According to some sources, it was an essay by John Ruskin to raise the interest for the Renaissance painting of the museum, hitherto banned.

The sculptures are of great value and date back to Roman times, with numerous copies of Greek originals. Sometimes the incomplete or broken statues were restored and integrated by the great Renaissance sculptors. The layout of sculptures is as close as possible to the end of the eighteenth century, when they allowed the confrontation between ancient and modern masters, a topic so very expensive, and therefore the function of the statues is still essential and strongly characterizing the origin and the historical function of the gallery.

The first, long corridor is the east, richly decorated in the grotesque ceiling dating back to 1581, as it runs to the ceiling of the ceiling, a series of portraits, the youngest series, spanned by paintings of the greatest size of the main members of the Medici family. Aulica series started by Francesco I de ‘Medici, with portraits of Giovanni di Bicci to Gian Gastone. The paintings of the Giovinas and Aulica series, which continue in the corridor on the Arno and in the west of the Gallery, are one of the largest and most complete collection of portraits in the world.

The pictorial portraits contradict the series of Roman busts, chronologically ordained at the end of the eighteenth century in order to cover all imperial history.

Among the most important statuary works are Hercules and Centaurus, from a late-revived original, embedded in the figure of the hero by Giovan Battista Caccini in 1589; a Barbarian King, composed in 1712 from the ancient bust only; Pan and Daphni, from an original Hododorus of Rhodes from the beginning of the 1st century BC; the Dancing Satyr or Bacco Bambino, from a Hellenistic original, restored in the sixteenth century. Later, a statue of Proserpina, a Greek original from the fourth century BC, is to be found, the ancient copy of the Pope of Skopas (IV century BC). At the sides of the grandstand’s entrance are a Hercules, an original of Lysipus, and a bust of Hadrian belonging to Lorenzo the Magnificent. In the last part of the corridor meet two Venus, originals from the 4th century BC and a Hellenistic Apollo, who was at the entrance to Villa Medici and invited, with his right arm of restoration, access to the house, as if it were the kingdom of God himself.

Room 1 Archaeological:
The room was created in 1921, in which works are mostly made from Rome. Among the reliefs are a Biga (V-IV century BC) and the festoon of Atena Nike (restored in the 18th century by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi). They belong to the “plebeian” style of Roman art the two reliefs with shop scenes from the first century AD The Ara Pacis reliefs are cast: the Medici possessed the original slab of Saturnia Tellus, who returned to Rome in 1937 to rediscover the monument. From Augustan times are also the fragments of the best of galli, while on the sides there are two reliefs of love, one with the attributes of Jupiter (lightning) and one with those of Mars (the armor): they were part of a very famous series in the Middle Ages, to which Donatello was inspired by the cantata of Santa Maria del Fiore.

The Venetian Temple and the Scene of Sacrifice come from an adriatic frieze of the second century. The sarcophagus with the fatigue of Hercules is characterized by an increased luminous contrast, by drilling work; the different ages of Hercules depicted allude to the periods of life.

Salt of the Middle Ages:
Theaters from 2 to 6 are dedicated to medieval art. With the first, the twentieth century and Giotto, it enters the “primitives” hall, set up by 1956 by Giovanni Michelucci, Carlo Scarpa and Ignazio Gardella, who covered the room with a rooftop ceiling, imitating the medieval churches. The room has a strong impact on the presence of the three monumental Majesty of Cimabue, Duccio di Buoninsegna and Giotto, painted a few years away. In the Majesty of Saint Trinita in 1285-1300, Cimabue attempted to emancipate himself with Byzantine stylistics, seeking greater volume and plastic relief with a delicate sweetness of shade; in front of it is the Duccio blade, known as Madonna Rucellai (around 1285), built with a rhythmic structure with graceful figures, most influenced by the cohesive pictorial experience of the French Gothic; Finally, at the center of the hall, the Majesty of Ognissanti of Giotto (around 1310) of a monumental facility and built much more plastically accentuating the chiaroscuro and the volumetry of the bodies. Of Giotto is also the Badia polyptych about 1300.

The first room also has a most prestigious representation of 13th century painting, including a triumphant Christ of the end of the XII century and a Christus patiens, rare for its high quality and conservation status very good.

The following hall (3) is dedicated to the great masters of the 14th century, in which are faced by the greatest masters of that school: the Annunciation of Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi (1333) and the Presentation at the Temple of Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1342) , both from the Duomo of Siena, and the Pala of Blessed Humility (1340) by Pietro Lorenzetti.

Following is the Florentine Trecento Room (4), which shows art developments after Giotto with the contributions of his most original students and personalities such as Giottino and Giovanni da Milano.

The Gothic International Room (5-6) is dominated by the monumental Coronation of the Virgin (1414) by Lorenzo Monaco and by the triumph of excellence and elegance of the Adoration of the Magi (1423) by Gentile da Fabriano, performed for the Florentine merchant Palla Strozzi .

Early Renaissance Halls:
Unparalleled is the nucleus of painting from the early Renaissance, from the late twentieth century to the middle of the century. The elaboration of the new language is witnessed by Sant’Anna Metterza (1424) by Masolino and Masaccio in room 7: of Masaccio are the sculptural Child and the Virgin, painted with a solemn body so austere and realistic that it can no longer define “Gothic “. In the same room are the St Paul’s Battle of Paolo Uccello, which witnesses his prospective obsession, and the works of Beato Angelico and Domenico Veneziano that indicate the search for new formats for the altarpiece and the birth of the ” painting of light “.

The great hall 8 is dedicated to Filippo Lippi, creator of Masaccio’s proposals and ferryman of Florentine art to that “primacy of design” which was his most typical feature. Here is also the extraordinary double portrait of the Dukes of Urbino by Piero della Francesca, one of the most renowned icons of Renaissance aesthetics. The exhibition is completed by works by Alesso Baldovinetti and Lippi’s son, Filipino, who was a breakthrough artist at the end of the 15th century.

Room 9 is dedicated to Friars of Pollaiolo, Antonio and Piero, among the first to practice an agile and snappy outline, which was a model for many successive artists. In the series of Virtues realized for the Court of Mercy, one stands out for its formal elegance: it is the Fortress, among the first works of the young Botticelli (1470).

Sala del Botticelli:
Botticelli’s room, large for the 10-14th floor pool, collects the world’s best collection of works by master Sandro Botticelli, including his masterpiece, Spring and the famous Birth of Venus, two emblematic works of sophisticated neoplatonic culture developed in Florence in the second half of the fifteenth century. These works were carried out in the eighties of the fifteenth century and are the first large works of profane subject of the Italian Renaissance. They were painted for Lorenzo de ‘Medici (not Lorenzo the Magnificent, but a cousin who lived in the Villa of Careggi, with whom, among other things, did not run good blood).

In this room you can trace the entire pictorial evolution of the master, with the graceful Madonna in glory of the Seraphim and the Madonna del Roseto, the most youthful works still linked to the style of Filippo Lippi and Verrocchio, the Portrait of Man with Medal of Cosimo the Elder (1475), where there is already a maturation of the style linked probably to the study of the realism of Flemish works, to mythological works, such as the moving Pallade and the Centaur, allegory of human instincts divided between reason and impulsivity but guided by divine wisdom.

With the approach of the sixteenth century, the ultra-religious reactionary wave of Girolamo Savonarola began to become more and more pressing in Florentine society and this manifests itself more or less gradually in all the artists of the time. Even Botticelli, after a magnificent work as the Madonna of the Magnificat began to adopt a more free style, loosened by the geometric lucidity of the perspective of the first Quattrocento (Madonna della Melograna, Pala di San Barnaba), with some archaic experiments such as the Coronation of Virgo where the master returns to the gold background in a scene seems inspired by Dante’s reading. The gloomy period of Savonarolian preaching leads to a definite wave of pessimistic mysticism in his painting: Calunnia (1495) symbolizes the failure of the humanist optimistic spirit, with the recognition of human weakness and the relegation of truth.

But this room also contains many other masterpieces: the location of the Portico Triptych, a Flemish work by Hugo van der Goes of 1475, was carried out by a banker from the Medici firm in Bruges in 1483, which with its formal extraneousness towards the surrounding works well makes the effect of brightening meteor that this work had in the Florentine artistic circles of the second half of the fifteenth century. At a more accurate examination, however, they begin to grasp the affinities with the works carried out later, the greatest care of the details, the best luminous rendering due to the oil painting that Florentine painters tried to imitate, even copying some elements of the work Fleming, like the light dices of Domenico Ghirlandaio in his similar adoration of shepherds in the basilica of Santa Trinita.

Another Flemish work is the Deposition in the sepulcher of Rogier van der Weyden (circa 1450), with the composition taken from a panel by Beato Angelico, which witnesses the reciprocal exchanges between Flemish and Florentine masters.

Leonardo’s Room and adjacent rooms:
Room 15 documents the artistic beginnings of Leonardo da Vinci, starting with the first documented work, the Baptism of Christ of 1475, by his master Verrocchio, in which the young Leonardo painted the head of the left angel, the landscape and perhaps the shaped body of Christ. Another youthful work is the Annunciation, painted by the twenty-year-old master, where the qualities of the light-hearted Leonard and his attention to atmospheric vibrations are already visible (think of the angel just landed), but with some perspectives such as the book on which the Virgin puts an arm, which on the ground rests on a base far more advanced than the legs of the Madonna. The Adoration of the Magi is an unfinished work in which the innovative sense of the genius of Vinci is evident, with a very original composition centered on the Madonna and the Child in a ruthless scenario of many moving figures, among which, however, do not appear traditional San Giuseppe or the capannuccia.

In the hall are also active artists in Florence during those years: Perugino (three big blades), Luca Signorelli and Piero di Cosimo.

Room 16 (geographic maps) was originally a loggia, which was closed for the wish of Ferdinand I de ‘Medici and made fresco with maps of the Medici domains. Room 17 is called Stanzino delle Matematiche, always created for Ferdinando I to receive its scientific instruments. The ceiling was decorated with an allegory of mathematics and episodes that celebrate ancient scientific culture. Today it exhibits the collection of modern bronzes and some ancient sculptural works.

The Tribune:
The Tribune is an octagonal room that represents the oldest part of the gallery. It was commissioned by Francesco I de ‘Medici in 1584 to arrange the archaeological collections and later all the most precious and beloved pieces of Medicean collections were placed. Having become very popular at the time of the Grand Tour, it was said to be an inspiration for the Wunderkammer of many European nobles. The environment is covered by a cupola encrusted with shells and mother-of-pearl, and covered by golden ribs and lanterns on which was a rose of winds, connected to the outside by a vane. The grandstand presents the walls of red scarlet, given by velvet upholstery, on which hangers and shelves hang on objects and statues; the hoof, now lost, was painted by Jacopo Ligozzi with birds, fish and other naturalistic wonders; at the center was a small trellis-an octagonal furniture that kept the smallest and most valuable pieces of the collection; the floor was made of marble inlays.

The Tribune, its decorations and objects that contained alluded to the four elements (Air, Earth, Water, Fire): for example, the rose of the winds in the lantern evoked the air, while the shells embedded in the dome the Water; the fire was symbolized by the red walls and the ground from the precious marbles on the floor. All this symbolism was then enriched by statues and paintings that developed the theme of the Elements and their combinations. The whole meaning was also the glory of the Medici, who, thanks to the divine will, had reached ground power, symbolized by the magnificent rare and precious possessions possessed.

Today, though transformed over the centuries, it is still the only room in which one can understand the original spirit of the Uffizi, that is, a place of wonder where you can directly compare the works of the ancients represented by sculpture and those of the modern ones with the paintings. Around the fine table inlaid with hard stones (from 1633 to 1649) some of the most famous antique sculptures of the Medici are circled, such as the Dancing Faun (Roman replica of an original from the 3rd century BC), the Lotteries (a copy of the Imperial Era ), the Arrotino (sharpening the knife in the Marsia group), the Scita (a copy of a statue of the Pergamian school that was part of a group with Marsia), the Apollinus and especially the famous Venere de ‘Medici, a Greek original of the first century BC among the most celebrated representations of the goddess.

The monumental stone in hard stones contained a collection of invaluable precious stones, antique camels and hard stones, one of the most loved collections by the Medici, who often made their initials on the most precious pieces: today they are exhibited in different locations, Argenti Museum, the Florentine National Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Mineralogy and Litology.

Renaissance halls outside Florence:
The rest of the east arm (hall 19-23) is dedicated to various Italian and foreign Renaissance schools: in these halls the Uffizi’s didactic spirit, developed in the 18th century through exchanges and specific accentuations, represents the development of painting in all his major roots.

Room 19, already Armeria, has an original original that was destroyed and was repainted in 1665 with the Allegories of Florence and Tuscany, triumphs, battles and Medici coats of arms by Agnolo Gori. The room clarifies Umbrian and Tuscan paintings with masterpieces of artists already met in Leonardo’s room: Luca Signorelli, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi and Piero di Cosimo. This last artist, famous for the magical and imaginative tone of his mythological works, is here represented by his free Perseus Andromeda masterpiece. They close the painted hall of Emilian, Forlivo and Marche schools.

Hall 20 (of Dürer) is by itself unique in Italy, hosting five works of the undisputed master of the German Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer, including the Adoration of the Magi of 1504, showing the debts towards Italian painting in the use of perspective and color. Lukas Cranach is also represented by various works, including the large panels of Adam and Eve (1528). Albrecht Altdorfer and Hans Holbein the Younger are present in Room 22. The ceiling of Hall 20 has a fresco decoration with grotesque originals of the sixteenth century, while the views of Florence were added later in the 18th century; Curious is the view of the Basilica of Santa Croce without the nineteenth century façade.

Room 21, frescoed by Ludovico Buti with battles and grotesques (interesting figures of “Indians” and New World animals), is dedicated to Venetian painting. If the works of Giorgione and Vittore Carpaccio are not unanimously judged autographs by the critic, Giovanni Bellini is present the masterpiece of sacred allegory, from the cryptic meaning not yet fully interpreted. Here is also the only representative of the 14th-century Ferrara painting in the gallery, Cosmè Tura and his San Domenico (circa 1475).

Even Room 22 (of the Renaissance Flemish and German) is in itself an unicum in the national museum landscape, with examples showing the prolific season of exchanges between Florence and Flanders in the 15th century, such as the portraits of Benedetto and Folco Portinari of Hans Memling (circa 1490) or Portraits by Pierantonio Baroncelli and his wife Maria Bonciani, an anonymous Flemish master (circa 1490). Not surprisingly, there are also works by the most “Flemish” Italian painter, Antonello da Messina (St. John the Evangelist and Madonna with Child and Angels Reggichorona, circa 1470-1475). The ceiling is decorated by Ludovico Buti (1588), with lively scenes of battles.

Room 23 is finally dedicated to the masters of northern Italy Mantegna and Correggio. Of the first are three works, including the triptych from the Palazzo Ducale di Mantova (1460), where he reads his extraordinary ability to recall the glitter of the ancient world. Correggio is documented several stages with Madonna and Child between two musician angels (work of youth), Child Adoration (about 1530), and Rest from Escape to Egypt with St Francis (circa 1517), amazingly original works 17th Century painters. They close the hall to a series of Lombardy paintings, especially linked to the leonards. This hall was also part of the armory, as the frescoed ceiling by Ludovico Buti with workshops for weapons production, gunpowder and fortress models (1588).

Room 24 is the Miniature Cabinet, with ellipsoidal planes, visible only from the outside, which houses the collection of about four hundred Medici miniatures, various epochs and schools, and portraits mostly portraits. It was decorated at the time of Ferdinand I, who here had placed the collection of stones and camels carried by dad from his wife Cristina of Lorraine. Over time he has hosted various collections (bronzes, jewelery, Mexican objects, jewelery, gems …) that are nowhere else, especially at the Silver Museum. Today’s appearance is the result of the eighteenth-century interventions by Zanobi del Rosso, who commissioned Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo oval shape and recreated decoration (1782).

Corridor on the Arno and West Corridor:
The Corridor on the Arno, spectacular for the views of the Ponte Vecchio, the river and the hills south of Florence, has for centuries been the best works of ancient statuary, due to the spectacular nature of the setting and for maximum brightness (in fact it faces south). The frescoes of the ceilings are religious themes, carried out between 1696 and 1699 by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini and Giuseppe Tonelli, for the initiative of the “catholic” Grand Duke Cosimo III, apart from the first two camps that are sixteenth century: one with a fake pergola and one with the grotesques. Among the statues exposed there is a Love and Psyche, a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original, and the so-called dying Alexander, a Hellenistic head derived from an original of Pergamon, a model often referred to as pathetic expression. At the crossroads with the main corridors are two Olympia-type statues, derived from Venus sitting in Fidia, one of the fourth century and one of the first century with its head rebuilt in modern times.

On the side to the Arno there is the Fanciule sitting ready for the dance (II century BC, part of a group with the dancing SATURATION of which there is a copy in front of the entrance of the Tribune) and a Marble in Black (from an original of V-IV century BC). On the opposite side there is a fragment of Lupa in porphyry, copy from an original from the 5th century BC. and a Dionysus and satire, with only ancient bust, while the rest was added by Giovan Battista Caccini in the late sixteenth century.

In the western corridor, used as a gallery since the second half of the seventeenth century after hosting workshops, continues the series of classical statues of Roman origin, largely purchased at Cosimo III’s time on the Roman antiquarian market. Among the most interesting works, the two Marsia statues (white and red), faced the other and Roman copies of a late Hellenistic origin: the red one belonged to Cosimo the Elder and the head was integrated, according to Vasari, by Donatello . Later there is a copy of the Discobolo di Mirone, with his right arm restored as if covering his face (for a long time this group was joined to the Niobe group). Mercury is a precious nudge derived from Prassitele restored in the sixteenth century. To the left of the vestibule there is a bust of Caracalla, with the energetic expression that inspired the portraits of Cosimo I de ‘Medici. On the opposite wall there is a Musa from the 4th century BC. of Atticiano of Afrodisia and an Apollo with the cetra, ancient bust elaborated by Caccini. The celestial Venus is another ancient bust integrated in the seventeenth century by Alessandro Algardi; for this reason, when the original arms were found, they were not reintegrated. Nereide on Hippocampus is derived from a Hellenistic origin. Noteworthy is the portraiture realism of the Boy’s Bust, also called the Nero child.

At the bottom of the corridor is the Laocoonte copied by Baccio Bandinelli to Cosimo I de ‘Medici at the request of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, with the addition of Bandinelli himself derived from the Virginian tale. It is the only modern corridor statue that allows comparison, a time so dear to doctors, among modern and ancient masters.

Ceiling decoration took place between 1658 and 1679 on the initiative of Ferdinand II de ‘Medici, with subjects related to illustrious Florentine men, as examples of virtues, and the personifications of the cities of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The painters who participated in the work were Cosimo Ulivelli, Angelo Gori, Jacopo Chiavistelli and others. When the last twelve camps were lost in a fire in 1762, the frescoes were reintegrated by Giuseppe del Moro, Giuliano Traballesi and Giuseppe Terreni.

Sixteenth-century cinemas:
Theaters from 25 to 34 host 16th century masterpieces. It begins with Michelangelo’s Room 25 and the Florentines, with the masterpiece of the Tondo Doni by Michelangelo, highly innovative for both composition and color use (1504), surrounded by Florentine works of the San Marco school (Fra ‘ Bartholomew, Mariotto Albertinelli), with the calm and laid monumental inspiration of the same Buonarroti and Raffaello.

Halls 26 and 27, respectively dedicated to Raffaello / Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo / Rosso Fiorentino, are rearrangements after their works have been moved to the larger rooms on the first floor (“red salt”).

Room 28 houses the Venetian masterpieces of Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo. The first one refers to a series of portraits and naked, including the famous Flora and Venus of Urbino, works of refined and enigmatic sensuality.

In the rooms 29 and 30 are masterpieces of Emilian painters, including Dosso Dossi, Amico Aspertini, Ludovico Mazzolino, Garofalo and, above all, Parmigianino, whose Madonna from the neck long shows with virtuosity the overcoming of Renaissance aesthetic canons in favor of something more eccentric and unnatural, with the complex ambiguity and definitely wanted, as well as sinuously beautiful.

Rooms 31 and 32 are again linked to Venetian painters, in particular Veronese, Tintoretto, Bassano, Paris Bordon and others. For the narrow and broken form, Room 33 was set up as a “Corridor of the Sixteenth Century”, dedicated to medium-sized works that showcase the variety of figurative proposals elaborated in the century: it goes from the crowded and minute-dressed compositions of artists who participated in the decoration of the studio of Francesco I in the Old Palace, the erotic refinements of the school of Fontainebleau, official portraits and simplified works according to the dictates of Controriforma.

The hall 34, Lombardi, closes the route, where the most important artists in the region are represented throughout the 16th century. Among them are Lorenzo Lotto, a conjunction between Venetian and Lombard culture (Portrait of a Young Woman, Susanna and the Elders, Holy Family and Saints), Brescia Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, an extraordinary creator of material effects, and Bergamo’s Giovan Battista Moroni, unsurpassed portraitist. Room 34 and Room 35 have access to the Vasari Corridor.

Hall of the West Corridor:
The west corridor houses other rooms that face it directly. These rooms, after the opening of the new ground floor rooms, are almost all re-set up. The Niobe room has been closed from the spring of 2011 to the 21st of December 2012 for restoration work.

Room 35 is dedicated to Federico Barocci and Controriforma in Tuscany, with numerous examples of the main exponents of the time. Of the Baroque is the great piece of the Madonna of the people.

Hall 40 was formerly the museum’s vestibule. There are several examples of classic statuary and some paintings, including a two-sided banner of Sodom. Room 41 was already dedicated to Rubens and today is used as a deposit. The great hall 42 was built by the architect Gaspare Maria Paoletti at the end of the eighteenth century to accommodate the numerous statues of the Niobìdi Group, a series of Roman statues, a copy of Hellenistic originals brought in those years in Florence. The myth of Niobe and her children is related to motherly love, which brought the wretched woman boast of her offspring (seven males and seven females) to be compared to Latona, mother of Apollo and Artemis, thus provoking the wrath of of those who avenged themselves by killing the children one by one. The sculptures came to light in Rome in 1583 and were part of the decorative kit of Villa Medici (bought by Cardinal Ferdinando), from which they were transferred to Florence in 1781, where they were exhibited directly in this room. Of the huge canvases on the two walls are Rubens (part of the unfinished cycle of Henry IV of France), one of Giusto Sustermans and one of Giuseppe Grisoni.

Room 43, already of the Italian and European 17th century, today hosts only a select center of Italian works, after foreigners have moved to the “blue rooms” on the first floor. They are represented by Annibale Carracci, Domenichino, Guercino, Mattia Pretti, Bernardo Strozzi and others.

Room 44 (Rembrandt and the Flemings) is being restored, while the 45th (eighteenth century) has been integrated with other Italian works after foreign ones have been moved to the first floor. The works of Canaletto, Giambattista Tiepolo, Francesco Guardi, Alessandro Magnasco and Rosalba Career stand out. Important for size and quality is Giuseppe Maria Crespi’s Love and Psyche canvas.

The adjacent room is the bar, from which you access the terrace above the Loggia dei Lanzi, a great observation point for the Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio and the Brunelleschi Dome. The small fountain on the terrace contains a copy of the Nano Morgante riding a snail, Giambologna, today at the Bargello but originally created for this site. From the bar you can also access the new staircase, which was inaugurated in December 2011, leading to the first floor.

Blue rooms:
Inaugurated in December 2011, the ten blue halls on the first floor (46-55) were dedicated to foreign painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Attracting from the rooms on the first floor, and above all, from deposits, Spanish, French, Dutch and Flemish painters in the Medici collections could be fully developed, allowing them to trace the different schools, particularly in the Netherlands. Room 46 is dedicated to the Spaniards (Velázquez, El Greco, Goya, Ribera), 48 and 51 to the French (Le Brun, Vouet, Boucher, Chardin), 47 to Leida School, 49 to Amsterdam (Rembrandt) , 50 to Hague, 52 to 55 to the South Netherlands (Jan Brueghel the Elder, Teniers, Brill, Rubens and van Dyck), 53 to Delft and Rotterdam, 54 to Haarlem and Utrecht.

Red salt:
Nine “red” rooms, from 56 to 61 and from 64 to 66, were set up in June 2012 with works of Florentine mannerism, in particular by treating their relations with the ancient. Room 56 is home to the best of the Hellenistic sculpture of the gallery, including a Niobide, the Gaddi Torso, and a crouching Venus. The relationship with statuary is best clarified in the next room, in which three rare monochromes by Andrea del Sarto, executed for the carnival of 1513, are related to the sarcophagus front with a representation of the sea tias (about 190).

Following are the rooms of Andrea del Sarto (58) with the famous Madonna delle Arpie and the artists of his circle (59), Rosso Fiorentino (60), Pontormo (61) and two rooms dedicated to Agnolo Bronzino (64 and 65), linked respectively to sacred production and relationship with doctors, with famous family portraits including that of Eleonora of Toledo with his son Giovanni.

He closes the series into a room dedicated to Raffaello (66). Here are the works of the Umbrian / Florentine stage (The Portraits of the Dukes of Urbino Elisabetta Gonzaga and Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Portrait of a young man with an apple), including the famous Madonna del Cardellino, a harmonic synthesis of various pictorial experiences (Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo …). The Roman period of Raffaello’s art is characterized by greater monumentality and full possession of the color technique, represented here by the High Portrait of Lion X with the Cardinals Giulio de ‘Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi.

Sale Ademollo:
The halls 62 and 63 are structurally complete since June 2012 but not yet set up. They will host works by Alessandro Allori and Giorgio Vasari. The following rooms host temporary exhibitions.

Verone sull’Arno:
Then come to Verone sull’Arno, with the large windows that give the river and the square of the Uffizi. Here are three monumental sculptures.

The Medico Vessel (center), a great neo-crater crater among the treasures that came to the Villa Medici museum, dates back to the second half of the 1st century BC. and is extraordinary in size and quality. In the base there is a bas-relief scene with the Achaean heroes who consult the oracle of Delphi before leaving for the Trojan War.

The Archbishop of Mars is by Bartolomeo Ammannati, with the God represented as in the act of inciting a chief army on the head, while on the opposite side is the Sileno with Bacco figlio of Jacopo del Duca, a copy of a Roman statue today at the Louvre, an original bronze of the fourth century, perhaps of Lysipus; these two statues were also in Medici’s villa and decorated the loggia on the garden.

Caravaggio and Caravaggeschi rooms:
The last halls of the museum, in the east arm on the ground floor, host the works of Caravaggio, caravaggeschi and Guido Reni. Set up in 1993 and move further north in the 2000s to give more space to temporary exhibitions (the halls on this side are almost identical on the other side of the square, just over half are currently valued). They will not have a number until the entire foreground setup is completed.

The works of Caravaggio in Florence are not many, but they represent well the youth stage of the master, dense of famous masterpieces since the early artistic productions. The Bacchus is so disgustingly realistic, and the Medusa Head, in fact a wooden shield for representation opportunities, such as tournaments. The expression of Medusa’s terror is impressed by the harsh violence of representation. The most typical of the mature style is the Sacrifice of Isaac, where the violence of the gesture is miraculously suspended.

Other works allow an immediate confrontation with works of similar subjects from Caravaggio’s followers: Artemisia Gentileschi with the Giuditta decapitated Oloferne (one of the few women artists who have an important place in the history of art), Battistello Caracciolo, Bartolomeo Manfredi (special room) , the Dutch Gerard van Honthorst, Italianized in Gherardo delle Notti (special room), Rustichino, Spadarino, Nicolas Regnier and Matthias Stomer.

The last hall of the gallery is dedicated to Guido Reni, the Bolognese chief of the seventeenth century. He was a master of seventeenth-century classicism, although David’s work with Goli’s head reconnects for the dark background to the caravaggesques of the previous halls. More abstractly idealized is the Estasi of St. Andrew Corsini, who entered the Gallery in 2000, from supernatural brightness.

Cabinet of drawings and prints:
On the first floor of the Gallery, at the premises of the former Medicean Theater, the collection of graphic arts has begun, started around the middle of the 17th century by Cardinal Leopoldo de ‘Medici and transferred to the Uffizi in about 1700. Only the prospect at the staircase, with a bust of Francesco I de ‘Medici of Giambologna (1586) on the central door, remains today in the ancient theater; at the sides there is a Venus, a Roman copy of an original from the 5th century BC, and a Hellenistic female statue.

The collection of drawings and prints, one of the largest in the world, includes about 150,000 works from the late 1400s to the 20th century, among which are examples from all the great Tuscan masters, Leonardo to Michelangelo to many others, which allow often to establish the creative path of a work, through preparatory drawings, or sometimes, through ancient copies, testimony of irreparably lost works such as the frescoes of the Anghiari Battle of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascada, who once had to decorate the sixteenth-century Salon in the Old Palace. Vasari himself collected the papers and consecrated the design as the “father” of the arts and prerogative of Florentine art. Temporary exhibitions, with collections or new acquisitions, will be periodically held in the small hall in front of the staircase or in the vestibule of the entrance to the Cabinet.

Bonacossi Contini Collection:
In the right arm of the loggia, with the entrance from via Lambertesca, is placed the extraordinary collection collected in the early twentieth century by the spouses Contini Bonacossi and donated to the Uffizi in the nineties, thus being the most important accumulation of the Museum of the last century . The collection includes furniture, ancient majolica, robbian crockery, and above all a very large number of works of Tuscan sculpture and painting, including a majesty with the Franciscan and Dominican saints of the Cimabue workshop, the Sassetta Snow Madonna (Around 1445), the Virgin of Pazzi’s home of Andrea del Castagno (circa 1445), the San Girolamo by Giovanni Bellini (circa 1479), the marble of Gian Lorenzo Bernini of the Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo (circa 1616), Our Lady with eight Bramantino saints (1520-1530) or the Francisco Goya Torero (1800 circa).

Ex-church of San Pier Scherage:
There are only a few arches visible from Ninna Street, and a nave that is part of the Uffizi, adjacent to the ticket office used in the second half of the twentieth century.

The San Pier Scheraggio room is used for conferences, for temporary exhibitions or for exhibiting works that do not find space in the exhibition path because of their singularity.

In the past he hosted a collection of Medici tapestries, as well as the frescoes of the men of Andrea Castagno’s men and women, coming from Villa Carducci-Pandolfini by Filippo Carducci to Legnaia, or Botticelli’s fresco of the Annunciation of 1481, detached from the wall of the San Martino Hospital Loggia at La Scala in Florence, or the great canvas of the Battle of Ponte dell’Ammiraglio of Guttuso and the archaeologists of Giorgio de Chirico.

Because of its huge collection, some of its works have in the past been transferred to other museums in Florence—for example, some famous statues to the Bargello A project was finished in 2006 to expand the museum’s exhibition space some 6,000 metres² to almost 13,000 metres², allowing public viewing of many artworks that have usually been in storage