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The Uffizi

Books and Archives

The Heritage of the Library and Archive

Books and Archives

Established in the second half of the 18th century by Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Habsburg-Lorraine, the Library had been originally housed in the Foyer of the Medicean Theatre designed by Giorgio Vasari. On December 16, 1998 it was moved into the restored premises of the former Magliabechiana Library. It preserves many manuscripts belonging to the collections of the Florentine museums and is specialized in the historical-artistic publications for scholars and researchers. The total number of items is 78,600, including: 470 manuscripts, 5 incunabula, 192 sixteenth-century editions, 1,445 books printed between 1601 and 1800 and 1,136 periodicals (approximately 140 are still printed).

The transfer of the Medici and Lorena Archives was concluded in 1892, leaving two sections in the Galleries considered at the time as the “current” archive: the first houses the archive containing the documents referring to museums from the Lorena and pre-unification era and is still an ‘open’ archive, while the second, housed in the Pitti Palace, comprised the Galleries’ inventories drafted during the Unification of Italy.

Le vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori scritte da m. Giorgio Vasari pittore et architetto aretino, di nome dal medesimo riviste et ampliate con i ritratti loro et con l’aggiunta delle Vite de’ vivi, & de’ morti dall’anno 1550 insino al 1567 Firenze, Appresso i Giunti, 3 volumi

Le vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori scritte da m. Giorgio Vasari pittore et architetto aretino, di nome dal medesimo riviste et ampliate con i ritratti loro et con l’aggiunta delle Vite de’ vivi, & de’ morti dall’anno 1550 insino al 1567 Firenze, Appresso i Giunti, 3 volumi

Giorgio Vasari (Arezzo 1511 – Florence 1574)

Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua per le quali si dimostra come, e per chi le belle arti di pittura, scultura e architettura, lasciata la rozzezza delle maniere greca e gottica, si siano in questi secoli ridotte all'antica loro perfezione, opera di Filippo Baldinucci  fiorentino distinta in secoli, e decennali, in Florence, for Santi Franchi,  [16], 68, [4]

Filippo Baldinucci (Florence 1625 – Florence 1696)

The Library and its collections

Le mouvement

Ètienne-Jules Marey (Beaune 1830-Paris 1904)

Felsina pittrice. Vite de pittori bolognesi

Carlo Cesare Malvasia (Bologna 1616 - 1693)

Statuae antiquae deorum et virorum illustrium, in Museum florentinum , 1731-1766, 12 volumi

Anton Francesco Gori (Firenze, 1691 – Firenze, 1757)

Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine (Historical News on Florentine Churches)

Giuseppe Richa (Turin 1693 – Florence 1761)

Le maraviglie dell'arte, overo le vite de gl'illustri pittori veneti, e dello stato (The marvels of art or the lives of the famous painters of Venice and its State)

Carlo Ridolfi, Lonigo (Vicenza), 1594 - Venice, 1658

Portraits of some famous painters of the 17th century, drawn and engraved in copper by the Knight Ottavio Leoni with the lives of the same by various authors

Ottavio Leoni (1578?-1630)

De civitate Dei

Aurelius Augustine of Hippo (Tagaste 354 - Hippo 430)

Epistolae of Franciscus Philelphus

Franciscus Philelphus (Tolentino 1398 - Florence 1481)

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