Palazzo Pitti travel guide
Palazzo Pitti is one of the most significant museums of an artistically and historically capital city like Florence, and despite representing the symbol of the power that the Medici family managed to exercise not only over Tuscany but over the whole of Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.
It was wanted, as the name itself suggests, by Luca Pitti, a wealthy Florentine banker, who had it built precisely to demonstrate the importance and economic power of his reputation as opposed to that of the rival family who held the fate of the city in hand.
The History of Palazzo Pitti
Legend has it that Luca Pitti asked Filippo Brunelleschi to build the luxurious palace he had designed for Cosimo de’ Medici in 1440. However, Cosimo de’ Medici thought it was too luxurious and might offend the people, so he did not build it. People say that the ambitious client asked for a courtyard to be built in front of the palace, which was a first for residential architecture at the time. The courtyard was big enough to hold Cosimo the Elder’s palace, and each window in the new house was at least as big as the door to the Medici house.
The original structure of the building reflects the tradition of the Renaissance building, which wants the same height, depth, and width of the building for a total of three floors with seven windows connected by a long balcony for each of the two upper floors and three entrance portals for the ground floor. The cladding is also traditional. It is made of “ashlar” stones, which are faceted instead of smooth and come from quarries on the same hill in Boboli where Palazzo Pitti was built.
Unfortunately, Luca Pitti’s project turned out to be much more expensive than he had expected because of how grand he wanted it to be. In 1464, the building stopped being built, but the family continued to live in the new house even though it wasn’t finished.
In 1550, Cosimo I’s wife, the beautiful Duchess Eleonora di Toledo, bought the palace from Buonaccorso Pitti, Luca’s son. She moved the Grand Duke of Tuscany there because she thought the area on the left bank of the Arno was better for his poor health.
From then on, the whole neighborhood of Oltrarno, which had never been seen as noble or important, went through a big change and became one of the cultural and political centers of Florence.
Palazzo Pitti itself went through major renovations. The first was done by Bartolomeo Ammannati, an original and innovative architect who built the impressive stepped courtyard and added tympanums and lion-headed sculptures to the facade in 1560.
The second was done by Giorgio Parigi in 1620, who made the facade as wide as it is now, and the last was done in the centuries after that, when the famous rondos, the two perpendicular side wings, were
In 1560, the great architect Giorgio Vasari built the Vasari Corridor, which links Palazzo Pitti to Palazzo Vecchio and is still one of the most interesting and evocative museum visits in the whole city.
When the Medici family’s time in Florence was coming to an end, Palazzo Pitti became the first residence of the Lorraine and, by extension, the Savoy family. This was during the time that Florence was the capital, from 1737 until 1919, when it was given to the state and stripped of its royal clothes to take on its current ones.
The visit to the four museums of Palazzo Pitti
After a reorganization of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, Palazzo Pitti was given to the Institute of the Uffizi Galleries.
It is now home to four different museums: the Palatine Gallery and the Royal Apartments, the Gallery of Modern Art, the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, and the Museum of Fashion and Costume. The four museums are spread out over two tour routes, and each route has only one ticket.
The first is the Palatine Gallery, which is in the left wing of the first floor. It has the largest collection of Raphael paintings in the world, as well as works by Botticelli, Tiziano, Caravaggio, and Rubens, among others.
The Royal Apartments, in the right wing, contain paintings, objects, and furnishings (tapestries, furniture, and furnishings) that belonged to all the ruling families who have alternated between the halls of the Palace Pitti and have left their traces, writing its history indelibly.
And the Gallery of Modern Art, of course, located on the second floor, houses works by more modern artists, such as the neoclassical Canova and the collection of Macchiaioli paintings, canvases, and sculptures from the early twentieth century.
The second circuit, on the other hand, includes the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, also known as the Silver Museum, which houses the collections of jewels, vases, plates, and semiprecious and precious stones that belonged to the Medici, Habsburg-Lorraine, and Savoy families, as well as examples of precious contemporary jewels, and the Museum of Fashion and Costume, which is housed in the Palazzina della Meridiana, a neoclassical building leaning
The two tours of the Pitti Palace
1: Palatine Gallery and Modern Art Gallery
Where: Piazza Pitti 1, Florence When: from Tuesday to Sunday (closing days besides Mondays; also on January 1st, May 1st, and December 25th)
How to book: The official dealer for the purchase of tickets online is B-Ticket; otherwise, purchase on-site. Hours: 08:15 to 18:50
The ticket office closes at 18:05. Closing operations begin at 18:30. The full price is € 8.50; the reduced price is € 4.25.Notes: On the occasion of temporary exhibitions, the ticket includes a surcharge.
2: Treasury of the Grand Dukes and Museum of Fashion and Costume
Where: Piazza Pitti 1, Florence When: from Monday to Sunday (closing days: first and last Mondays of the month, January 1st, May 1st, and December 25th)
How to book: The official dealer for the purchase of tickets online is B-Ticket; otherwise, purchase on site.
Museum hours
- from 08:15 to 16:30 (November, December, January, February)
- from 08:15 to 17:30 (March)
- from 08:15 to 18:30 (March, when it’s summertime)
- from 8:15 a.m. to 18:30 p.m. (April, May, September, and October)
- from 08:15 to 17:30 (October, when there is solar time)
- from 08:15 to 18:50 (June, July, and August)
The last admission is scheduled half an hour before closing.
The prices of the tickets are as follows: full € 7.00, reduced € 3.50. Notes: On the occasion of temporary exhibitions, the ticket includes a surcharge.
How to get to Palazzo Pitti
On the train. Palazzo Pitti is just over 1 km from Santa Maria Novella Station, a distance that can be covered by car or on foot in about 20 minutes along the Via delle Belle Donne, Via de’ Tornabuoni, Ponte S. Trinita, and Via Maggio, or with bus D, which stops right in front, in the car.
The historic center of Florence is where Palazzo Pitti is, so you can’t get there by car. The Oltrarno car park managed by Firenze Parcheggi, in Piazza della Calza 1, about 850 meters away, or those on the surface around Ponte alle Grazie and the National Library, about 900 meters away, can be used.
By plane.
Both from the “Amerigo Vespucci” airport of Florence and the “Galileo Galilei” airport of Pisa, there are shuttle services that offer a connection service with the S. Maria Novella station.
