Description
The Galleria Palatina is the painting museum of Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, across the Arno: twenty-eight rooms on the piano nobile with paintings hung from floor to ceiling, one next to another, in gilded frames. It is the “quadreria” of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, left almost as it was.
Nobody has arranged the paintings by period or school, and that is deliberate: they hang in several rows in symmetrical patterns, chosen for their decorative effect and meant to amaze. The taste is that of the late Renaissance and the Baroque, with canvases mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries.
The heart is in the Sala di Saturno, with the largest group of works by Raphael: from the Madonna del Granduca to the famous Madonna della Seggiola, a family scene both monumental and tender. Then there is Titian, with the Concert, La Bella and the Portrait of Pietro Aretino in the Sala di Venere.
In the Sala di Giove you find Raphael's Veiled Woman, an ideal of female beauty and perhaps a portrait of the Fornarina, his lover, next to Giorgione's Three Ages of Man, one of the very rare paintings by the master. In the Sala dell'Educazione di Giove stands Caravaggio's Sleeping Cupid.
Look up at the vaults too: in the first rooms they were frescoed by Pietro da Cortona. Ancient myths tell, in code, the life and education of the prince and celebrate the Medici. In the Sala della Stufa, which was the grand duke's bathroom, he painted the walls as well.
The core collection numbers about 500 paintings, more than the Uffizi's, and they arrived by several routes. Many came with the collections of Vittoria della Rovere, last heiress of the Dukes of Urbino. In 1743 Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici left everything to the city, so that nothing would be dispersed. The gallery opened to the public in 1833.
Sacred paintings, made for altars, often passed from churches to the palace in exchange for copies. To make them fit the walls, they were sometimes cut or extended. Napoleon took a part of them to the Louvre: Canova managed to get back the Seggiola and other Raphaels, but a few canvases got lost along the way.
Don't miss
• The Madonna della Seggiola.
• The Veiled Woman.
• The Sleeping Cupid.
• Titian's Penitent Magdalene.
Did you know?
• Canova's Venere Italica was compensation for the Medici Venus, taken to the Louvre by Napoleon.
• In 1860 the Savoy had the fresco in the Sala della Musica retouched: Austria became Italy, wearing the Savoy crown.
Nobody has arranged the paintings by period or school, and that is deliberate: they hang in several rows in symmetrical patterns, chosen for their decorative effect and meant to amaze. The taste is that of the late Renaissance and the Baroque, with canvases mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries.
The heart is in the Sala di Saturno, with the largest group of works by Raphael: from the Madonna del Granduca to the famous Madonna della Seggiola, a family scene both monumental and tender. Then there is Titian, with the Concert, La Bella and the Portrait of Pietro Aretino in the Sala di Venere.
In the Sala di Giove you find Raphael's Veiled Woman, an ideal of female beauty and perhaps a portrait of the Fornarina, his lover, next to Giorgione's Three Ages of Man, one of the very rare paintings by the master. In the Sala dell'Educazione di Giove stands Caravaggio's Sleeping Cupid.
Look up at the vaults too: in the first rooms they were frescoed by Pietro da Cortona. Ancient myths tell, in code, the life and education of the prince and celebrate the Medici. In the Sala della Stufa, which was the grand duke's bathroom, he painted the walls as well.
The core collection numbers about 500 paintings, more than the Uffizi's, and they arrived by several routes. Many came with the collections of Vittoria della Rovere, last heiress of the Dukes of Urbino. In 1743 Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici left everything to the city, so that nothing would be dispersed. The gallery opened to the public in 1833.
Sacred paintings, made for altars, often passed from churches to the palace in exchange for copies. To make them fit the walls, they were sometimes cut or extended. Napoleon took a part of them to the Louvre: Canova managed to get back the Seggiola and other Raphaels, but a few canvases got lost along the way.
Don't miss
• The Madonna della Seggiola.
• The Veiled Woman.
• The Sleeping Cupid.
• Titian's Penitent Magdalene.
Did you know?
• Canova's Venere Italica was compensation for the Medici Venus, taken to the Louvre by Napoleon.
• In 1860 the Savoy had the fresco in the Sala della Musica retouched: Austria became Italy, wearing the Savoy crown.