PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE
This one-time residence of the Medici family is a treasure-trove: there are royal apartments, galleries of modern art, costume, silverware and porcelain. Above all, there is the Galleria Palatina, frescoed by Pietro da Cortona, and second only to the Uffizi. It contains one of the world’s best collections of Raphaels and Titians. The paintings are still hung 19th-century style, when “Does that Tintoretto match the room’s decor?” or “Let’s put all the round ones together” mattered more than any didactic arrangement.
The Pitti Palace exterior
NEED TO KNOW
Piazza de’ Pitti
Galleria Palatina and Appartamenti Reali: 055 294 883; open 8:30am–6:30pm Tue–Sun; closed 1 Jan & 25 Dec
Galleria del Costume: open 8:30am–6:30pm; closed Mon, 1 Jan, 1 May & 25 Dec
Museo della Porcellana, Museo degli Argenti and Boboli Gardens: open Nov–Feb: 8:45am–4:30pm daily (Mar & Oct with winter clock: until 5:30pm; Apr–May, Sep & Oct with daylight saving: until 6:15pm; Jun–Aug: until 6:30pm); closed 1st & last Mon of the month, 1 Jan & 25 Dec; adm (Ticket includes adm to Garden of Villa Bardini)
- Pitti Gola e Cantina, just across the piazza, offers light meals and snacks.
- The gardens surrounding the palace are a good spot for a picnic.
- You can buy a modern version of Pitti Palace’s pietre dure table at Pitti Mosaici on the Piazza de’ Pitti.
1 Mary Magdalene
This is the first (1535) of many Mary Magdalenes (see Sala di Apollo) painted by the Venetian master Titian.
2 La Velata
Raphael did many portraits, usually of Madonnas, and several of his best are in these collections. La Velata (1516) is his masterpiece of portraiture, displaying his mastery of colour, light and form (see Sala di Giove). The sitter is most likely La Fornarina, his Roman girlfriend.
La Velata
3 Consequences of War
Venus tries to stop Mars going to war, while Fate encourages him (see Sala di Marte). This was Rubens’s plea against his country becoming embroiled in the Thirty Years’ War.
4 Boboli Gardens
The Renaissance garden with Baroque and Rococo touches has cypress avenues, hidden statues and burbling fountains.
5 Three Ages of Man
The attribution of this allegorical work (1500) to Giorgione is not certain, but it is a beautiful piece (see Sala di Giove) with strong colour and composition. Compare it to Pietro da Cortona’s Baroque Four Ages of Man (1637), frescoed on the ceiling of the Sala della Stufa.
6 Madonna and Child
In a masterful touch, Filippo Lippi placed the Madonna’s chin in the geometric centre of this work, helping to unite a complex composition (see Later Works) involving both the main scene and background images from the Virgin’s life.
Madonna and Child
7 Grotta Grande
This Mannerist cavern is dripping with stylized stalactites, Giambologna statues and plaster casts of Michelangelo’s Slaves.
Grotta Grande
8 Ammannati’s Courtyard
Mannerist architecture was a robust, oversized take on the Renaissance. Bartolomeo Ammannati expounded this in dramatic, heavily rusticated Classical orders in this cortile (1560–70).
9 The Tuscan Maremma
On the second floor (not shown on the floorplan), the modern art gallery’s jewel is Giovanni Fattori’s 1850 work. He was the best of the Macchiaioli, a 19th-century Tuscan school with parallels with Impressionism.
10 Green Room, the Royal Apartments
The best-preserved room in the Appartamenti Reali contains lavish furnishings, such as an ebony cabinet inlaid with semiprecious stones and bronze. The ceiling of the Green Room is decorated with trompe l’oeil stuccoes and a canvas by Luca Giordano.
MUSEUM GUIDE
Enter via Ammannati’s Courtyard (ticket office is to the right of Pitti Palace). Galleria Palatina and the royal apartments are on the first floor, but see the Palatina first. The Boboli entrance is in the back right-hand corner. The other collections are: Modern Art Gallery; Costume Gallery (in the Meridiana Summer Palace); Silver Collection (ground floor); Porcelain Museum (at the top of the Boboli); Carriage Museum (left wing, call 055 2388 611 before visiting).
