The Uffizi Renaissance
One of the world's best-known museums of Renaissance art, Italy's Uffizi Galleries is home to a remarkable collection of paintings and antique sculptures from the 14th century. Constructed by the great architect Giorgio Vasari under instruction from Grand Duke Francesco the First, the gallery is a majestic building originally used as administrative offices by the Medici family.
The gallery is on the first and second floors of Giorgio Vasari's 1560 building. It has a number of valuable works by European painters way back from the Middle Ages to the Modern day. Including works from Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Raffaello, Correggio, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Caravaggio.
The gallery also has a priceless collection of ancient Medici statues and Roman versions of lost Greek sculptures decorating the passageways. You can appreciate and admire the Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, Paolo Uccello's "Battle of Saint Roman", Duccio de Buoninsegna "Madonna Rucellai", Cimabue's Maestà of Santa Trinita, the Venus Birth, the Triptych Portinari, Hugo Van Der Goes, amongst many others.
In 1565 Vasari made a passageway to the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti, passing by Uffizi Gallery and crossing the Ponte Vecchio connecting to the palazzo Pitti historical monument. Vasari also decorated the walls with works from Guido Reni, Artemisia Gentileschi and Carracci, enhancing the already breathtaking space with important works of German, Dutch and Flemish painters like Duerer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Velazquez, which you can explore today in one place.
