The Pitti Palace Florence is one of the sparkling gems in this wonderful city. The capital of the Tuscany region of Italy Florence has a population of approximately 500,000. Built around the banks of Arno River, it is a city bursting with culture and art. You should consider Palazzo Pitti for your travel.
Situated just over the Ponte Vecchio away from the centre of Florence you will find the remarkable Pitti Palace. It comprises a selection of museums and galleries and a ten-acre Italian garden. The history of this building is that it was built in fourteen fifty-eight by Luca Pitti a Florentine banker to demonstrate his wealth and power to the famed Medici family. He named it Palazzo Pitti.
However in fifteen forty-nine the Pitti family fell on hard times and sold the sumptuous palace to Cosimo I de’ Medici as a family residence. The famous Italian Boboli Gardens were originally laid out in fifteen forty-nine and later expanded to what they are today.
Napoleon in the late eighteenth century use it as a power center and in nineteen nineteen it came into public possession opening as an art gallery.
Today it houses the well known Palatina Gallery displaying the works of Raffaello, Andrea del Sarto, Caravaggio, Botticelli, Titian, Ruebens, Velazquez, Bronzino, Murillo and other masters. The paintings are displayed in sumptuously decorated rooms with baroque stuccoes and frescoes. When touring the gallery you not only get to view great masterpieces but you also get a glimpse of how the Medici’s lived. As you view room after room of sheer luxury.
Here you will also find:
The Silver Museum, which holds the Medici jewellery collection.
The Modern Art Gallery, which shows the best of nineteenth and twentieth century Italian art.
The Coach Museum that displays state coaches.
The Costumes Gallery, which again is self-explanatory.
The Royal Apartments that was first occupied by the Medici family and later by Italy’s royal House of Savoy.
The Boboli Gardens were created from the quarry that was left after the quarried stone for the palace had been used.
The Pitti Palace is a wonderful place that you could visit again and again.
Malcolm Ivinson publishes a website on short city breaks and he loves Florence. (The city that is!)