Museums in Florence

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 21. Chapters: Art museums and galleries in Florence, Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Vecchio, Medici Chapel, Bargello, Brancacci Chapel, Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze, San Marco, Florence, Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze, La Specola, Museo Galileo, Tribuna of the Uffizi. Excerpt: The Palazzo Pitti (Italian pronunciation: ), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast mainly Renaissance palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the town residence of Luca Pitti, an ambitious Florentine banker. The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a great treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry and luxurious possessions. In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a power base by Napoleon, and later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of the newly united Italy. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, and its doors were opened to the public as one of Florence's largest art galleries. Today, it houses several minor collections in addition to those of the Medici family, and is fully open to the public. Luca Pitti (1398-1472) began work on the palazzo in 1458. Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence, bought the palazzo from the Pitti in 1549 for the Medici. Portrait after Bronzino.The construction of this severe and forbidding building was commissioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti, a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de' Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact and myth. Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. The 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari proposed that Brunelleschi was the palazzo's architect, and that his pupil Luca Fancelli was merely his assistant in the task but today it is Fancelli that is generally credited. Besides obvious differences from the elder architect's style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fen