Museum
The Uffizi Gallery is one of the top museums in the world, as well as one of the oldest. Every year, millions of visitors to Florence and Tuscany enter into the Uffizi to see with their own eyes some of the most famous works of art and masterpieces that have marked mankind’s artistic innovation through the centuries.
The museum is located within a palace built in 1560 right next to Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of Florence’s government. Cosimo I de’ Medici as ruler of Florence commissioned the court architect, Giorgio Vasari, to build an office building for the city’s public servants and magistrates as there was no space in Palazzo Vecchio. The building itself came to be known simply as “the offices” which in Italian, as you might have guessed, is “uffizi”. It was Francesco I, Cosimo’s son, that had the idea to use the top floor of the impressive architectural complex as his own personal showroom for the many works of art the family possessed. Thus, the first “art gallery” was born.
The Medici family was a great patron of the arts and over the following decades and centuries, the family continued to commission and acquire a wide variety of works of art for their growing collection. The inauguration of the gallery as an actual museum takes place in 1765 by Pietro Leopoldo, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. This was almost 30 years before even the Louvre came into existence. Keep reading more about the History of the Uffizi Gallery.
How to organize your visit to the museum
Some practical information about the layout of the museum will help you better plan your visit to the Uffizi Gallery, especially if your time in Florence and the museum is limited.
The Uffizi museum is spread out over 3 floors, with the main means of getting from floor to floor being a grand staircase. There are also elevators to help you get to the top floors but these are small and there might be a line to use them.
The ticket office and entrance to the museum are both on the ground floor of the palace, although on opposite sides of the U-shaped buildings. You’ll find a large well-supplied bookstore with art history books, souvenirs and children’s books on the ground floor after the entrance but it is best if you dwell here at the end of your visit.
On the first floor there are several interesting halls, including one dedicated to Caravaggio, as well as the “Cabinet of Prints and Drawings” within the Uffizi collection (some are on display on a rotational basis in the vestibule to the Cabinet). There is also a large library specialized in art history books but only available by special permission as well as the various halls dedicated to the temporary exhibits organized during the year. If an exhibit is going on during your visit, your museum ticket includes the exhibit as well. You’ll get a chance to see it at the end of your visit to the Uffizi’s main halls as you pass heading back down to the first floor.
The main and most interesting halls in the museum are on the second floor. The 45 halls here display works of art from the 13th to the 18th centuries with the many sculptures from antiquity being displayed in the three corridors that line the interior of the U-shaped building.
At the end of the second floor, above the Loggia dei Lanzi, you’ll also find a café that offers patrons a chance for a snack or drink with an extraordinary view of Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio and the rest of the historical center of Florence.
Read more about the Halls and the Artworks displayed at the Uffizi Gallery.
