History of the Uffizi Gallery and Ponte Vecchio

Museum of the Uffizi

When and how to visit Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery, one of the greatest museums of the world, has its origins in 1560 when Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned from Giorgio Vasari a plan for the construction of a great palace with two wings, "on the river and almost in the air", in order to receive the administrative and judicial offices (Uffizi) of the Florentine State. Five years later the same Vasari was the designer of an aerial gallery that, spanning the Old Bridge and the church of Santa Felicita, connected the Uffizi to the new Medicean residence of the Pitti building and ended in the garden of Boboli.

The first true nucleus of the Gallery was created by Francesco I, son of Cosimo, who, after have slowly transformed the last floor of the Uffizi into a place where it was possible "to walk, with paintings, statues and other precious things", entrusted to Buontalenti the realization of a Gallery in which furnishings and works of art were collected By the same architect is also the Medicean Theatre, built in 1586 in correspondence with the current first and second floors of the east wing of the museum. In 1589, Ferdinand I, brother of Francesco, would transform the terrace, positioned near the gallery, into an enclosed environment that would become the Loggia of the Geographical Maps.

At the end of the other wing of the Gallery, there is a roof-garden, set above the Loggia of the Orcagna. Today the Uffizi house an immense artistic heritage, comprising thousands of pictures that span from the Medieval age to the present, a great number of ancient sculptures, miniatures and tapestries. The collection of self-portraits is famous, increased constantly over time, also with acquisitions and donations of contemporary artists, to which another most remarkable collection is joined, that of the Cabinet of Designs and Prints.

The Boboli garden

How to visit Boboli Garden

The first complex was acquired in 1550 by Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo I de’ Medici, by the Pitti family. The plan of the arrangement of the garden, called the Tribolo, was undertaken by Niccolò Pericoli; after his death in 1555, the management of works was assumed by Davide Fortini and subsequently, between 1554 and 1561, by Giorgio Vasari.

Ammannati also contributed to this work in the years from 1560 to 1583 and he designed there the courtyard that has kept his name. The great space, that of the Amphitheatre, of semi-elliptical form, with which the two wings of the courtyard planned by Ammannati would blend, was carved into the great stone pit at the foot of the hill of Belvedere. This architectonic concept joined in perfect harmony the Pitti palace and the garden of Boboli. After 1574, Francesco I introduced the architect Bernardo Buontalenti, who realized the Grotta Grande ( the Great Cave ).
The cave is derived from the transformation of a nursery executed between 1556 and 1560 on the plan of Giorgio Vasari.
The niches at the side of the entrance of the cave house the statues of Bacchus and Ceres by Baccio Bandinelli (1552-1556). In the corners there were, before their substitution with concrete limestone, which took place in 1924, the Prisons of Michelangelo. In the early years of the XVII century, during the times of the Grand Duchy of Cosimo I (1609-1621), the garden was widened, under the supervision of Gherardo Mechini and Giulio Parigi, besides the city walls erected during the war against Siena.

The composition of the garden had as an ideal axis the wide avenue of cypresses that leads to the huge Basin of the Island, realized between 1612 and 1620. Giulio Parigi was also responsible for the Vasca dell'Isola (basin of the island), one of the more evocative places of the garden, originally conceived as a space for the cultivation of citruses and flowers. At the centre of the basin, there was probably a Fountain of Venus, replaced in 1636 by the Grand Duke Ferdinand II with the Ocean of Giambologna. Also dating back to 1636 is the placing of the statue of Abundance in the position it currently holds, begun by Giambologna and concluded by Pietro Tacca.

In the XIII century, the Medicean dynasty came to an end and the Grand Duchy passed to the Habsburg-Lorena family.
After an initial period of abandonment, under Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena (1765-1790), great activities of restoration that involved the sculptures, the architecture,  the water installations and the greenery were undertaken.
The garden was also equipped with new buildings, among which the Kaffeehaus (1775) and the Limonaia (1777-1778), planned by Zanobi del Rosso, and the Palazzina della Meridiana, begun in 1776 by Niccolò Gaspero Paoletti.

There was a new phase of decline during the Napoleonic domination (1799-1814) and following the attempt of the grand duchess Elisa Baciocchi to transform Boboli into an English garden but this was never realised.
With the lorenese restoration, Boboli was brought again to the formal appearance that it had once had with its origins.
In 1834, under Leopoldo II, the garden underwent the destruction of the mazes in order to allow the opening of a great thoroughfare, on the plan of Pasquale Poccianti. During this century, the garden was the scene of famous shows in the open air.