Online Encyclopedia

Categories: Art museums and galleries in Italy | Florence | Wonders of the World

Uffizi

The Uffizi Gallery (Italian Galleria degli Uffizi) is a palace or palazzo in Florence, holding one of the most famous museums in the world.

Building of the palace was commenced in 1560 by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo I de' Medici as the offices for the Florentine magistrates - hence the name uffizi, meaning offices. Construction work ended in 1581. Over the years, parts of the palace evolved into a storage place of many works of art collected by the Medici family. After the decline of the Medici, the art treasures remained in Florence, forming one of the first modern museums.

Here is only a small selection from the world-class collection of paintings: (NB: All the links following the artists' names are to pages explaining the subject or form of the paintings, except for The Birth of Venus, which links to a page on the painting itself)

Cimabue (Maestà)
Duccio (Maestà)
Giotto (The Ognissanti Madonna, Badia Polyptych)
Simone Martini (The Annunciation)
Paolo Uccello (The Battle of San Romano)
Piero della Francesca (Diptych of Duke Federico da Montefeltro and Duchess Battista Sforza of Urbino)
Fra Filippo Lippi (Madonna with Child and Two Angels)
Sandro Botticelli (Primavera, The Birth of Venus, Adoration of the Magi and others)
Hugo van der Goes (The Portinari Triptych)
Leonardo da Vinci (Baptism of Christ, The Annunciation, Adoration of the Magi)
Piero di Cosimo (Perseus liberating Andromeda)
Albrecht Dürer (Adoration of the Magi)
Michelangelo (The Doni Tondo)
Raphael (Madonna of the Goldfinch, Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de' Medici and Luigi de' Rossi)
Titian (Flora, The Venus of Urbino)
Parmigianino (The Madonna of the Long Neck)
Caravaggio (Bacchus, The Sacrifice of Isaac, Medusa)

In 1993, a car bomb destroyed and damaged parts of the palace; a number of pictures were destroyed, several more were damaged. A project is currently under way to expand the exposition space of the museum from some 6,000 square metres to almost 13,000 by 2006, allowing public viewing of many artworks long usually in storage.