Despite being the most appreciated museums of Italy and the world, the monumental Uffizi Galleries of Florence They are not born as a museum, but as a bureaucratic place, and the name suggests their original destination. The history of the Uffizi begins in 1560when The first Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo I de ‘Medici erected a building in the city center to accommodate the “Uffizi”, that is The administrative and judicial offices of Florencea place to centralize the power of the doctors (who had now full control of the Florentine territory).
The project of the Giorgio Vasari Uffizi Gallery
The project was assigned to the medical trusted artist, the great Giorgio Vasariwho went down in history as the first art historian of the modern era. It was he who designed this Large building with “u” shape with the portico with Doric columns and the elegant and severe place appearance “in the river and almost in the air“, And it was always he who designed the corridor that he takes his name (and who has recently finally reopened) that through the Uffizi unites Palazzo Vecchio at Palazzo Pitti, passing on Ponte Vecchio and crosses the church of Santa Felicita before emerging in the Boboli garden.
To make room for the Uffizi, initially known as the “building of the judiciary”, Many constructions were demolished who were on the right bank of the Arno where, since the Roman era, There was a port neighborhood on the river Said “La Taverna di Baldracca”, named after a malfached place. On the side of Piazza Signoria, however, the ancient Romanesque church of San Pier Scheggio was incorporated into the new Vasarian masonry.
The monumental work was completed only after the death of both Vasari and Cosimo I by another great architect, Bernardo Buontalentiwhose works were directed by another Grand Duke, the cultured and refined Francesco I de ‘Medici: it is precisely to him that the creation of the gallery, set up in 1581 on the second floor of the building, must be created, whose heart was the octagonal room of the grandstand, the treasure chest of the most precious works preserved here.
The most important works of the Uffizi galleries
The works preserved in the Uffizi are many, and cover an extensive period of time, from the Roman era to full contemporaneity, even if the heart of the collection is the one that preserves the best works of the project of the Giorgio Vasari Uffizi Gallery. By grandiose portraits, such as that of the Dukes of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza of Piero della Francescaof the mid -fifteenth century, we arrive at great works such as the “Battle of San Romano”, a masterpiece of Paolo bird. Then there are several works of Leonardo da Vinci like the “adoration of the Magi” and the “Annunciation” and the most famous works of Sandro Botticelli“The birth of Venus” and “La spring”, all made in the last decades of the fifteenth century.
The “Holy Family” are also unmissable, also called “Tondo Doni”, of Michelangelo Buonarroti and the “Madonna and Child and San Giovannino” called “Madonna del Cardellino” by Raffaelloboth of the early sixteenth century (as well as the famous “self -portrait”, always by Raffaello); And then again the “dinner in Emmaus” by Pontormoof the mid -sixteenth century, the period in which the “Venus of Urbino” and the “Portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere” were also made Titianalways in the same rooms; Little later there is also the “Bacchus” of Caravaggioof the last years of the sixteenth century.
But the list of works to see would be very long: there are invaluable pieces of Giotto and Cimabue, Lorenzo Lotto, Giorgione, Rosso Fiorentino, of the Verrocchio, and then of Artemisia Gentileschi -His is the great “Giuditta and Oloferne” -and again Luca Signorelli, Andrea Mantegna, Correggio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Piero del Pollaiolo, Giovanni Bellini, Germigianino, Bernardino, Bernardino, Bernardino Luini, Annibale Carracci, Federico Barocci, Guido Reni and Giorgio Vasari himself (his great portraits of the doctors), and from Europe as large as El Greco, Albrecht Dürer.
There are also modern and contemporary works of great artists such as Renato Guttuso, Alberto Burri, Carla Accardi, Bill Viola, Vanessa Beecroft and Jenny Holzer. In addition to the ancient and modern works of art, and the architecture of the palace itself, many also come in this place to observe gems, weapons and scientific tools, including those belonging to Galileo Galilei (of which there is, in the art gallery, also the famous “Portrait of Suttermans”) preserved in the Camerino delle Mathematics.
The rescue of the Uffizi and its acquisition in the Italian state
When the main branch of the doctors was extinct, the last descendant Anna Maria Luisa de ‘Medici imposed on the new Grand Duke imposed by the European powers the so -called Family pactwith which in 1737 linked the Medici inheritance to Florence “For the ornament of the state, for the usefulness of the public and to attract the curiosity of foreigners”. About fifty years later, In 1789, the gallery was open to the public from the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldoenlightened member of the Austrian House of Habsburg-Lorena, Dynasty to the reins of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until the unification of Italy.
Starting from 1769 the gallery was reorganized according to the Enlightenment cataloging criteria And the collections were divided by type and intended for specific locations: for scientific ones the new Museum of Physics and Natural Sciences was created, known as the Spectulateand during the nineteenth century many works of Renaissance sculpture were moved to Museum National of Bargello and some Etruscan pieces went to Archaeological museum. Finally, in the twentieth century the Pinacoteca was enriched with many works from the assets of churches and convents, as well as by donations and purchases.
At the end of the 90s, an ambitious project was approved for The new exit of the galleryof the great architect Arata Isozakiwhich however was definitively canceled a couple of years ago; at the same time the Working works of the Gallery with the acquisition of the rooms of the first floor.
