Florence Travel Guide

The Uffizi (Gallerie degli Uffizi)

The Uffizi is one of the world's greatest art galleries, with a collection of Renaissance paintings that includes the works of Giotto, Masaccio, Paolo Ucello, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian and Caravaggio. The collection is housed on the top floor of a building designed as the offices ( ) of the Medici, commissioned by Duke Cosimo I. From 1581, Cosimo's heirs used the upper storey to display the Medici art treasures. Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures line the inner corridors of the gallery and a series of rooms jut off from here, showcasing the chronological development of Florentine art from Gothic to High Renaissance and beyond. The scale and magnitude of the collection may need to be enjoyed over two visits. Rooms 1-15 (Florentine Renaissance) could be explored more thoroughly on the first trip and on the next visit one could concentrate on rooms 16 to 45 (from High Renaissance to later Italian and European paintings).