The Uffizi Palace Back
The Uffizi Palace is one of the most loved monuments of Florence. An architectural work of great importance, that shelters masterpieces of inestimable value.
Comissioned by Cosimo I, it was designed by Giorgio Vasari around the middle of the 16th century. In order to realize the project, Vasari had some of the buildings surrounding the area demolished.Among these the church of San Pier Scheraggio, in via della Ninna. The intention of Cosimo I was to build a palace that could host the thirteen administrative and judicial Magistrature or Uffizi, from which the palace will get its name.When Vasari died, the construction of the Uffizi was handed over to Buontalenti and to Alfonso Parigi. Buontalenti projected the Teatro Mediceo according to the will of Francesco I, the son of Cosimo I, in 1586. When Florence was the capital of Italy the theatre was the seat of the Senate. The building has the unusual and singular horseshoe shape, also called U shape, which opens towards the Arno River. The two bodies of the building are parallel and conjoined by a connecting corridor that has six big arched windows that open over the courtyard of the palace and over the Arno River. The two floors of the building, divided by string courses, stand over a portico that runs along the whole length of the palace and is sustained by pillars. In the niches of the portico are the statues of the Florentines who distinguished themselves from the Middle Ages until the 19th century.
At the present day the Palazzo degli Uffizi hosts one of the most admired and visited museums in the world for the quality of its artworks and the history that accompanies them from the 13th century to the 18th century: the Uffizi Gallery. In 1993 the Palace was involved in the bombing attack at the Accademia dei Gergofili undergoing damages and loses of inestimable value; another act of vandalism against a patrimony of the world that managed to resist and to win returning, after a long restoration work, to its original splendour.
Pitti Palace
Situated in the first great square in the area that the Florentines call “Diladdarno” - beyond the Arno - Palazzo Pitti dominates uncontested by a small hill at the feet of Boboli
The Medici’s Chapels
The Medici Chapels were built as a personal sepulchre of the Medici family right in the basilica of San Lorenzo, the one considered by the Medici as their private church and located in front of the residential palace in via Larga (presently via Cavour).
Santa Maria Novella
Piazza Santa Maria Novella, with its original five-sided shape, is one of the largest squares in the old city centre of Florence:
Florence Dome (Santa Maria del Fiore)
The Cathedral or Duomo of Florence as we see it today is the end result of years of work that covered over six centuries of history. Its basic architectural project was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio at the end of the 13th century;
Piazza della Signoria
Piazza della Signoria has been the political heart of the city from the Middle Ages to the present day. It is a singular urbanistic creation that began taking shape from 1268 onwards, when the Guelph party gained control of the city again and decided to raze the houses of their Ghibelline rivals to the ground.
Ponte Vecchio
Built in ancient times by the Etruscans, the bridge has weathered many storms - and storming by invading legions. Because of its location over the narrowest part of the Arno River, the bridge has been rebuilt and restored many times throughout its long history. And it has changed with the times.
Palazzo Vecchio
Palazzo Vecchio, found in Piazza della Signoria in the historical center of Florence, which once had the exclusive role of political representative of the city, began to lose importance beginning with the new construction of the Uffizi Palace in 1565.
