Pitti Palace

Museum of Costume and Fashion

The collections of the Museum of Costume and Fashion will be exhibited again on a date to be determined and the &quot;Palazzina della Meridiana&quot; now is closed.The Museum of Costume and Fashion (formerly known as the Costume Gallery) is located in the Palazzina della Meridiana next to the southern wing of Pitti Palace. Started under Grand Duke of Tuscany Peter Leopold by architect Gaspero Maria Paoletti in 1776 and completed in 1830 by Pasquale Poccianti under Grand Duke Leopold II, the building takes its name from the astronomical instrument made by Vincenzo Viviani in 1699. The instrument is in the vestibule &ndash; with the gnomon pinhole &ndash; of Grand Prince Ferdinando de&rsquo; Medici&rsquo;s apartment. Anton Domenico Gabbiani depicted the Allegory of Time and the Arts (1693) in the vault of the vestibule. All the successive dynasties, from the Habsburg-Lorraine family to the House of Savoy, including the regency of Maria Luisa of Parma and the brief reign of Elisa Baciocchi, left their mark on furnishings and decorative wall paintings. Founded in 1983, it was the first State museum in Italy dedicated to the history of fashion and its social significance. Displayed in rotation for conservation reasons,&nbsp;its collections include clothes, jewellery and accessories from the 18th century to today, along with a captivating group of stage costumes worn by movie, theatre and opera stars in works helmed by reknowned&nbsp;20th-century directors. Among ancient garments, the 16th-century funeral clothes&nbsp;of Cosimo I de&rsquo; Medici, Eleanor&nbsp;of Toledo and their son Garzia de&rsquo; Medici have&nbsp;been completely restored and are&nbsp;part of the permanent collection on display.&nbsp;

Fashion: similarities and differences

Two thousand years of history told through wine

A rich collection of decorative arts in the Medici’s sumptuous Summer Apartments

Treasury of the Grand Dukes

Formerly known as the Silver Museum, the Treasury of the Grand Dukes&nbsp;is located on the ground and mezzanine floors of Pitti Palace, and comprises the rooms that were once the summer apartments of the Medici family. Its walls, entirely frescoed on the occasion of the wedding&nbsp;between&nbsp;Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinando II de&rsquo;Medici and Vittoria della Rovere (1637), are one of the first examples of quadrature and trompe-l&rsquo;oeil perspective in Florence. It houses the precious &ldquo;Medici&rsquo;s Treasure&rdquo;: semi-precious stone vases, rock crystals, ambers and ivories. The silverware comes from the &ldquo;Treasure of Salzburg&rdquo; - the collections of the Bishops of Salzburg - and was brought to Florence by Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand&nbsp;III of Habsburg-Lorraine. The Museum also houses an important collection of jewellery realized&nbsp;between the 17th and 20th centuries and has a large section dedicated to contemporary jewellery.

Vinum Nostrum. Art, science and myths of wine in ancient Mediterranean civilisations

The chance to get to know the extraordinary power of female art

Self-portraits. Female artists of extravagant and dextrous ingenuity. The 10th edition of the “I mai visti” exhibition series

An encounter with great Western art: an everlasting wonder

The Uffizi

A new journey into the world of Caravaggio and international caravaggism

The Medici’s collections of paintings on display with a vast array of sumptuous frames, furnishings, stuccoes, silks and Baroque frescoes

Palatine Gallery

The Palatine Gallery and Royal and Imperial Apartments occupy the entire first floor of Pitti Palace, which was the residence of the Medici dynasty, then of Habsburg-Lorraine one and lastly of the House of Savoy, hosting the King of Italy from 1865&nbsp;to 1919. The lavish Gallery was founded between the end of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century by the Habsburg-Lorraine family, who hung about 500 masterpieces in the ceremonial rooms chosen from the main Medici&rsquo;s collections. It is an impressive selection, which includes the largest concentration of paintings by Raphael in the world of, as well as invaluable works by Titian, Tintoretto, Caravaggio and Rubens. The paintings in their lavish frames entirely cover the walls of the rooms which are enriched by sculptures, vases and tables with semi-precious stone inlays, typical of 17th-century galleries.&nbsp;The sensational series of frescoes by Pietro da Cortona for Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinando II de&rsquo; Medici, realized between 1640 and 1647 in the &ldquo;Planet Rooms&rdquo;, adds to the unique charm of the Gallery, where every work of art is enhanced by the setting and the furnishings

Caravaggio and caravaggeschi in Florence

The privilege of admiring a masterpiece from a Spanish art museum

Hans Memling. Portrait of a young man praying from the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum

The art of cameo engraving in the Medici’s collection

Precious and beautiful. The Medici’s cameos and engravings

The restoration of three masterpieces of one of the founding fathers of the Italian Renaissance

Homage to Filippo Lippi

A gift from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

The Collection of Master Drawers. The Hotbed of Invention

Department of Prints and Drawings

Located on the first floor of the Gallery of the Statues and Paintings of the Uffizi, the Department of Prints and Drawings occupies one of the stately spaces which housed the Theater built in the second half of sixteenth century by Bernardo Buontalenti under the Medici family&rsquo;s rule. Between 1952 and 1960 a series of important maintenance works to systematically restore the interior was entrusted to Florentine architect Edoardo Detti (1913-1984), a leading advocate of the Italian Rationalism movement who worked according to the most avant-garde museographic criteria. More recently a new Study Room with over 30 equipped workstations has been installed, designed to offer the many Italian and foreign students who visit the Galleries an atmosphere which is more conducive to research. The Institute houses one of the most important collections of images in the world. Composed of over 177,000 drawings and prints, the collection was started around the mid-seventeenth century by Cardinal Leopoldo de&rsquo; Medici and continues to grow thanks to direct acquisitions and donations. Its huge paper archive dates from the end of the fourteenth century to present day, with a predominance of works from the Italian Renaissance and Tuscan seventeenth century Tuscany. As well as offering academics and researchers access to a photograph gallery and a specialist library, the Department also curates periodic exhibitions and restores its own assets in a highly specialized laboratory.