Description
Palazzo Pitti is the enormous Renaissance palace of the Oltrarno, on Piazza Pitti, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio: it was the residence of the grand dukes of Tuscany and today is a complex of museums, with the Palatine Gallery and the Boboli Gardens behind it.
Built as the residence of the banker Luca Pitti in 1458, it passed to the Medici in 1549. Then it was the home of the House of Lorraine and, from 1865 to 1870, the royal palace of the Savoys, when Florence was the capital of Italy. In 1919 the king gave it to the State.
The palace looks onto a square, the first ever built in front of a private palace in Florence, and presents a rusticated stone facade seven bays wide. From the central portal you enter a spacious courtyard, the Ammannati courtyard.
The Palatine Gallery is the most famous museum. After Ammannati's grand staircase, in the grand dukes' rooms you find masterpieces by Raphael and Titian hung as in a court picture gallery: packed close, in symmetrical patterns, inside gilded frames, with none of a modern museum's order.
The Royal Apartments are the rooms where grand dukes and kings lived: the rooms of Pietro da Cortona, with their mythological frescoes, and those of the neoclassical era. The Gallery of Modern Art gathers the works of the Macchiaioli.
There are also the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, devoted to the applied arts, the Museum of Fashion and Costume, the Porcelain Museum and the Carriage Museum.
The Boboli Gardens are one of the most important examples of Italian garden in the world and an open-air museum of sculpture. The amphitheater arose by making use of the hill and the pit of the quarry that supplied the palace's stone. From the Viottolone gravel avenues lead to little lakes, fountains, nymphaea and grottoes, and the eighteenth-century Kaffeehaus looks out over the city.
Luca Pitti wanted windows bigger than the door of the Medici house and a courtyard big enough to hold all of Palazzo Strozzi: so, the legend goes, he wanted his palace. In 1458 work started on a grand scale, but Luca fell from grace and in 1465 construction stopped.
In 1549 the Pitti sold it to the Medici. The buyer was Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I and daughter of the viceroy of Naples: she thought the Oltrarno healthier than the crowded center. Napoleon also stayed here, in the early 1800s.
Don't miss
• The Palatine Gallery.
• Pietro da Cortona's rooms.
• The Gallery of Modern Art.
• The Boboli Gardens.
Did you know?
• The Ammannati courtyard was flooded to a depth of almost two meters for a naval battle between twenty Turkish and Christian ships.
• In 1565 Vasari built the Vasari Corridor, which connects the palace to Palazzo Vecchio by way of Santa Felicita, the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi.
• On July 22, 1952, in the Sala Bianca, the first Italian fashion show took place: the birth of Alta Moda, reported by the very young Oriana Fallaci.
Built as the residence of the banker Luca Pitti in 1458, it passed to the Medici in 1549. Then it was the home of the House of Lorraine and, from 1865 to 1870, the royal palace of the Savoys, when Florence was the capital of Italy. In 1919 the king gave it to the State.
The palace looks onto a square, the first ever built in front of a private palace in Florence, and presents a rusticated stone facade seven bays wide. From the central portal you enter a spacious courtyard, the Ammannati courtyard.
The Palatine Gallery is the most famous museum. After Ammannati's grand staircase, in the grand dukes' rooms you find masterpieces by Raphael and Titian hung as in a court picture gallery: packed close, in symmetrical patterns, inside gilded frames, with none of a modern museum's order.
The Royal Apartments are the rooms where grand dukes and kings lived: the rooms of Pietro da Cortona, with their mythological frescoes, and those of the neoclassical era. The Gallery of Modern Art gathers the works of the Macchiaioli.
There are also the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, devoted to the applied arts, the Museum of Fashion and Costume, the Porcelain Museum and the Carriage Museum.
The Boboli Gardens are one of the most important examples of Italian garden in the world and an open-air museum of sculpture. The amphitheater arose by making use of the hill and the pit of the quarry that supplied the palace's stone. From the Viottolone gravel avenues lead to little lakes, fountains, nymphaea and grottoes, and the eighteenth-century Kaffeehaus looks out over the city.
Luca Pitti wanted windows bigger than the door of the Medici house and a courtyard big enough to hold all of Palazzo Strozzi: so, the legend goes, he wanted his palace. In 1458 work started on a grand scale, but Luca fell from grace and in 1465 construction stopped.
In 1549 the Pitti sold it to the Medici. The buyer was Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I and daughter of the viceroy of Naples: she thought the Oltrarno healthier than the crowded center. Napoleon also stayed here, in the early 1800s.
Don't miss
• The Palatine Gallery.
• Pietro da Cortona's rooms.
• The Gallery of Modern Art.
• The Boboli Gardens.
Did you know?
• The Ammannati courtyard was flooded to a depth of almost two meters for a naval battle between twenty Turkish and Christian ships.
• In 1565 Vasari built the Vasari Corridor, which connects the palace to Palazzo Vecchio by way of Santa Felicita, the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi.
• On July 22, 1952, in the Sala Bianca, the first Italian fashion show took place: the birth of Alta Moda, reported by the very young Oriana Fallaci.