Italy is a country very rich in history and culture, but it is also a country very rich in art and architecture.

There are few countries where you can walk in the city that represent real open-air museums, but one thing that few people know is that Italy has the highest number of UNESCO sites. Over the years, the rumor has circulated that Italy possesses 50% of the world’s artistic heritage: fake news. However, the fact that this nation has proportionately more UNESCO sites than others should make us reflect on how much art we can find in Italy.

In this ocean of art contained in Italy, one cannot fail to mention the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the museum that rises in Florence and which, together with the Vasari Corridor, Palazzo Pitti, and the Boboli Gardens, constitutes one of the most important museums in the world.

Each place has its own story that deserves to be told to understand the soul of the place itself. This also applies to the Uffizi Gallery.

The history of the Uffizi Gallery starts from a different point from the one that led it to become a famous museum. This palace, in fact, was born by the will of Cosimo I De ‘Medici, who, wanting to consolidate the monarchical power in Florence, entrusted Giorgio Vasari with the construction of a U-shaped palace in which to insert the magistrates of the city.

To this architect, we owe the homonymous corridor, the Vasari Corridor, an elevated path that Cosimo de ‘Medici wanted to connect Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti, passing right above the Uffizi Gallery.

In 1574 Giorgio Vasari died, and the direction of the construction site of the Uffizi Gallery passed, at the behest of Francesco I De ‘Medici, to Bernardo Buontalenti. He completed the work in 1580, and the following year Francesco I of him decided to use the loggia on the top floor as his gallery to keep his paintings and other objects of artistic value. From this moment, the Uffizi Gallery gradually transformed into a museum.

From that moment, architectural and artistic changes were gradually made to the Uffizi Museum, which led it to become a museum and not the seat of offices, given the large number of works of art that were inserted within its walls.

Once the Medici Dynasty was over, the Lorraine Dynasty carried out this work of modification of the Gallery.

The Gallery thus passed from century to century between wars, Napoleonic spoliation, and so on until it became what we can admire today: a huge museum that collects centuries of art in an artistic context. This is, in fact, the Uffizi Gallery.

The question may seem obvious to an enthusiast, but for other people it is anything but obvious or trivial. Why visit the Uffizi Gallery?

The answer is soon said: because the Uffizi Gallery has one of the most important art collections in the world and it is always a pleasure to be able to see with your own eyes the creations that artists have created during their careers without having to look at a website. or a book of photographs.

We can see Botticelli’s Birth of Venus in a book and this will give us a certain sensation filtered through the lens of a camera, but the feeling you get when seeing it in the Uffizi Museum in Florence will be something completely different. The thrill of seeing with your own eyes and without filters a work of art is something absolutely unique that remains within us forever.

This applies to all the works of art that can be found inside the Uffizi Museum such as Michelangelo’s Il Tondo Doni, or the Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci or the works of Giotto and Cimabue.

The main reason to visit the Uffizi Gallery is to dive into the history of art and appreciate what is present in its rooms. The art in the Gallery starts in ancient Greece and reaches the present day. The collection that you will find in this magnificent museum includes sculpture, paintings, clothes, drawings, and prints and there are several artists whose works find space in it, such as Giotto and Cimabue, Raphael, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, and many others.

If we look at the architecture of the Uffizi Gallery, we could linger for hours to talk about the Doric style used by Vasari and everything else, but the first things we can say about the architecture of the Uffizi Gallery are two words: majestic and evocative.

As mentioned, Vasari used the Doric order ( an ancient Greek architectural style loved by Cosimo De ‘Medici ) to create the look of the Uffizi Gallery, but this was just one of the elements that were merged into this ad-shaped complex. “U“.

The architraved loggia on the ground floor, the barrel vaults, the niches, the pillars, the architraved portico with Doric columns and all that we can see in the appearance of the Uffizi Gallery, in its architecture, blends a series of styles and ideas that they have succeeded over the centuries.

Vasari was inspired not only by the Doric style of Ancient Greece but also by Michelangelo (the architraved portico, in fact, was previously used by the latter in Rome when he was entrusted with the renovation of the Palazzo Senatorio) and by Brunelleschi (the use of Serena stone from Valle della Mensola) and other styles.

The result was a spectacular palace of rare beauty that represents the first artistic treasure of the Uffizi Gallery itself and in which statues and other elements were inserted that exponentially increased the beauty of the Uffizi Gallery.

As an example of the various elements that harmoniously merged into the architecture of the Uffizi Gallery, one cannot fail to mention the Porta delle Suppliche by Bernardo Buontalenti on via Lambertesca, whose broken tympanum was inverted in the two halves, creating a tympanum “to wings” typical of the animalistic ideas of his architectural style.

The floors of the Uffizi Gallery are constantly changing due to the “Nuovi Uffizi” project, so it is not possible to say exactly how the internal look of the floors of the Uffizi Gallery will eventually appear.

There are, however, some important information we can give you about the internal structure of the Uffizi Gallery that we hope will be useful.

On the ground floor you will find the ticket office and the entrance to the museum, as well as a well-stocked souvenir shop where you can go to the Uffizi Gallery at the end of your visit to buy what you like best.

The exhibition heart of the Uffizi Gallery is located on the first and second floors. These two floors contain a total of over 100 rooms, although not all of them can be visited.

On the first floor, at least at this moment, in addition to the rooms for temporary exhibitions, there are exhibitions of European painters but above all of the painters such as Raphael, Correggio, Parmigianino, Tiziano, and Caravaggio.

On the second floor of the Uffizi Gallery, on the other hand, there are painters such as Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and many other works of art, as well as geographic cares.

As mentioned, the Uffizi Gallery is changing its internal layout, so the layout of the contents of the individual rooms can also change, but broadly speaking this is the layout of what you will find inside the Uffizi Gallery when you visit it.