What is the Uffizi museum - the most visited museum in Florence

The Uffizi museum or more correctly the Uffizi Gallery is a state museum located in Florence, in the homonymous building.

The Uffizi are undoubtedly the most famous and visited Florentine museum among the many museums and cultural sites of the city. The gallery is also the most important among Italian museums in terms of number of visitors. Second only to the Vatican Museums (which, moreover, are located in the state of the Vatican City).

What is the reason for this primacy?

The Uffizi Gallery represents one of the most prestigious art collections in the world. The museum site itself is a masterpiece of the highest Renaissance architecture. The Uffizi Palace was designed by Giorgio Vasari on commission from Duke Cosimi I de 'Medici in the mid-1500s. Cosimo in fact decided to concentrate all the administrative offices of his government in a single location a few steps from the Palazzo della Signoria. To build the current Uffizi palace, Vasari therefore had to demolish a part of the old medieval city and obtain a space for the new grandiose Medici palace.

The seat of the Uffizi therefore develops between Piazza della Signoria and the Arno river. The building with its unusual "U" shape overlooks the splendid square on one side and on the other towards the Ponte Vecchio, offering splendid views of the city. On the second floor of the building, in fact, large glass galleries run along all the external corridors. And it is precisely here that the exhibition begins.

The Uffizi Gallery collects a very precious collection of paintings from the Roman era up to about 1700. The works are exhibited following a chronological order. The path starts on the second floor and ends on the first floor.

The book shop, cloakroom and audio guide desk services are located on the ground floor.

The exhibition begins with the painting of Cimabue, followed by the gothic revolution by Giotto, the late gothic by Gentile da Fabriano. Then there are the rooms dedicated to the early Renaissance with the works of great masters such as Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca and Filippo Lippi. The grandiose Medici season of Lorenzo il Magnifico is celebrated instead in the rooms dedicated to Sandro Botticelli, still a symbol of the Uffizi with the Birth of Venus and the Allegory of Spring.

In fact, Botticelli has a large exhibition space reserved for other great masterpieces by this extraordinary painter.

The route continues towards the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, to which the Uffizi dedicates an entire room, the room of Raphael and Michelangelo, and then continues with the works of Titian, Caravaggio and many others.