Le Telerie Toscane di Giulia
Metallo Nobile
Tipografia Etrusca
Tourist informations
Entrance from: Piazza Pitti 1.
Opening hours: 8,15-18,50. Closed on Monday
Admission ticket: informations about tickets are given in the pages about each Museum of Pitti Palace.
Opening hours: 8,15-18,50. Closed on Monday
Admission ticket: informations about tickets are given in the pages about each Museum of Pitti Palace.
With its 250 meters wide façade Palazzo Pitti is the most imposing Florentine palace: its famous Museums and the Gardens of Boboli made of it one of the "must see" monuments of Florence.
History
When the Medici decided to build a new palace in Via Larga (today's Via Cavour), they discarded Brunelleschi's impressive design; it was accepted instead from the bankier Luca Pitti, who wanted to show to the city (and to the Medici) the power of his family by building a huge palace.
Works begun in 1458 under direction of architect Luca Fancelli: he demolished part of today's Via Guicciardini in order to create a square in front of the new Pitti palace. The original palazzo consisted of two floors with seven windows (Luca Pitti wanted them as big as the entrance door of the new palace of the Medici) and a loggia. Such an imposant project proved to be too expensive, even for the rich Pitti family, and the building was interrupted in 1466; only 80 years later Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo I de' Medici, bought the abandoned palace and the gardens of Boboli, and made of them the new palace of her family. The building was completed in 1580 by Bartolomeo Ammannati, who designed the courtyard and added the lion heads on the façade.
Click to enlarge pictures.
In 1620 the palace Giulio Parigi lenghtened the façade, and in 17th-18th Century the two side porticos, the so-called rondò, were added; in the early 18th Century Pasquale Poccianti built the Palazzina della Meridiana, located on the rear side towards the gardens.
In 1865-71, when Florence was capital of Italy, Palazzo Pitti was the royal palace, and in 1919 King Vittorio Emanuele III donated the whole complex of palace, museums and gardens to the Italian State.
In the spotlight
In Palazzo Pitti are located several Museums and Galleries, whose collections range from porcelains to modern art.
From this list you can reach the pages of each museum and gallery:
