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CONSTRUCTION
Cosimo I dei Medici (1519-1574) came to power in 1537, when he was only eighteen. As a
result of his extraordinary political and military abilities, he very soon became lord of almost
all of Tuscany .
In 1540 he left the family residence to move to Palazzo Vecchio, the historic seat of the city
government.
Having renovated the Palazzo, Cosimo then turned his attention to Piazza della Signoria and
the surrounding area, planning to enhance the centre of the State through an imposing urban
development.
The site he chose was a popular residential district, stretching from the south of Piazza
Signoria as far as the river Arno . Here he decided to build a magnificent edifice to house the
principal government offices of the State, hence the name of Uffizi (or offices).
The project was entrusted to Giorgio Vasari, a painter and architect favoured by Cosimo, who
began work in 1560.
The building, in the form of a horseshoe, was made up of one long wing to the east, which
also incorporated the ancient Florentine church of San Pier Scheraggio, a short portion along
the bank of the river Arno, and another shorter wing to the west, where the Uffizi was
designed to be connected with two existing buildings, the Zecca Vecchia, or Mint, and the
Loggia dei Lanzi.
Vasari conceived an architectural module to be repeated all along the building; this consisted
of a portico flanked by two pillars, with niches on the ground floor and three windows on the
upper story.
The construction, built in the fine-grained limestone known as pietra forte, demanded an
enormous financial commitment, much of which was sustained by the Magistrature, the
government officials who were to be accommodated in the new building.
By 1565, the so-called Uffizi Lunghi were already completed, as well as the part overlooking
the river. In this section Vasari revised the architectural module, creating broad arcades which
help to give greater amplitude to the narrow square of the Piazzale degli Uffizi.
In the same year, on the occasion of the marriage of his son Francesco to Giovanna d'Austria,
Cosimo I asked Vasari to design a raised passageway connecting Palazzo Vecchio with Palazzo
Pitti, which the Grand Duke had just purchased and was destined to become the new
residence of the family.
In the same year, on the occasion of the marriage of his son Francesco to Giovanna d'Austria,
Cosimo I asked Vasari to design a raised passageway connecting Palazzo Vecchio with Palazzo
Pitti, which the Grand Duke had just purchased and was destined to become the new
residence of the family.
This extraordinary aerial passage was conceived so as to enable the Grand Dukes to move in
safety, without the need for escorts, from their private residence to the seat of government; it
represented an element of considerable prestige for the Medici.
BIRTH
Cosimo I and Giorgio Vasari both died in 1574. The patron and artist who had worked so
harmoniously together were succeeded by another partnership with a similar concord of
intention, that composed of Francesco I and the architect Bernardo Buontalenti.

The latter, together with Alfonso Parigi, brought the construction of the Uffizi to completion in
1580.
One of Buontalenti's first interventions was the Porta delle Suppliche, which features a split
tympanum, an architectural invention which became very popular in Florence. The wooden
doors are exquisitely engraved with the exploits of the Grand Duke.
It was Francesco I who decided to use the long loggia on the top floor of the Uffizi to set up a
Gallery to house ancient statues and portraits of the Medici family and of illustrious men.
Between 1579 and 1581 the ceilings of the Gallery were frescoed with grotesque motifs.
This was a type of decoration which had spread at the end of the fifteenth century, being
inspired by the Roman wall paintings discovered in the archaeological excavations, especially
those in Nero's domus aurea.
The work was begun by Antonio Tempesta and continued by Alessandro Allori, with the
assistance of a group of collaborators that included Ludovico Buti, Giovanmaria Butteri,
Giovanni Bizzelli and Alessandro Pieroni.
In 1581 Buontalenti began the construction of the Tribuna in the long wing of the Uffizi; this
area was destined to house the treasures of the Medici collections.
Built on an octagonal plan, the Tribuna was inspired by the Tower of the Winds in Athens,
described by Vitruvius in his first book on Architecture.
The structure, the decoration and the objects contained in the Tribuna alluded to the four
elements of the universe: air, water, earth and fire.
The air was evoked by the wind rose set into the lantern and connected to the exterior by a
wind vane. The fire was reflected in the red velvet upholstery, the water by the mother-ofpearl shell inlays decorating the walls and ceiling, and the earth by the marble mosaic of the
pavement.
There were also statues of divinities and other objects recalling the elements. The Tribuna has
undergone numerous transformations over time. It housed ancient statues, such as the
famous Medici Venus, and the paintings which in the various historic periods were considered
the masterpieces of the collections.
In 1583 Francesco I had the terrace above the Loggia dei Lanzi transformed into a hanging
garden, where the court would gather in the evening to listen to music.
The garden was embellished by a small loggia with fountain, a pergola, and pots holding
orange, lemon and peach trees, carnations and even vegetables.
The garden no longer exists, but the terrace with its splendid view over the city can still be
visited.
Buontalenti also designed the Medici theatre. This was an area 55 metres long, 20 metres
wide and 14 metres high, surrounded by tiers of seats, with the Princes' box in the centre. It
occupied a section of the first and second floor of the Uffizi complex. Over the centuries, the
theatre was restructured, until finally it was divided into two floors: the first became the Prints
and Drawings Room, while the second floor area was given over to several rooms of the
Gallery itself.
What does remain of the theatre is the Vestibule, corresponding to the landing at the top of
the second flight of steps leading to the Gallery. In the Vestibule, opening on the left is what
was the door of the theatre (now the entrance to the Prints and Drawings Room) and opposite
are the three doors of the Ricetto (foyer). The wooden doors are engraved with Medici
emblems, and above that in the centre is a bust of Francesco I.

DEVELOPMENT
On the death of Francesco I, in 1587 his brother Ferdinando left his ecclesiastical career to
take over the government of the State.
Ferdinando's cultural interests were oriented towards the sciences, in harmony with the trends
that emerged towards the end of the century.
Ferdinando I was also interested in the Gallery, and he enriched it further with the "Gioviana"
series, a collection of portraits of famous men begun by his father, Cosimo I.
He then also set up a room for the "Geographical Maps", where he commissioned Ludovico
Buti to fresco the walls with the maps of the "old Florentine domain", the "State of Siena" and
the " Island of Elba ".
In the centre of the room were a globe and an armillary sphere, while several canvases
painted by Jacopo Zucchi on mythological subjects, removed from the Roman residence of the
Grand Duke, were adapted for the ceiling.
In a small room next to the Tribuna the "Stanzino delle Matematiche" was set up to house
scientific instruments, as illustrated by the ceiling frescoes showing the figure of Mathematics
and those of the walls in which certain scenes have been identified with the inventions of
Archimedes.
On the initiative of Ferdinando I, the Grand-ducal workshops were set up in the Uffizi building,
and in 1588 the Manifattura delle Pietre Dure was established, which was to become a model
of State manufacture. As well as the craftsmen carving the pietre dure, the west wing of the
gallery also housed goldsmiths, jewellers, illuminators, gardeners, porcelain craftsmen,
sculptors and painters.
The splendid products created in these workshops, used as gifts on the occasion of weddings,
births and other public events, made Florentine craftsmanship famous throughout the world.
Some of these objects are on display in the Museo degli Argenti. To provide access to the
workshops, a staircase was built in the west wing, known as Buontalenti's staircase.
Between the Tribuna and the Arno seven rooms were set up to house the collection of arms
and armour, now no longer in existence apart from a few exemplars conserved in the National
Museum of the Bargello.
The ceilings were decorated by Ludovico Buti in 1588 with frescoes inspired by the contents of
the rooms; some of them were later repainted.
The series of rooms ended with one which housed the glyptotheca, brought as a dowry by the
wife of the Grand Duke, Christine of Lorraine, and now housing the collection of miniatures.
After the death of Ferdinando I in 1609, the Gallery remained unaltered for almost half a
century.
17th century
Between 1658 and 1679, at the time of Ferdinando II, the west corridor was decorated with
subjects celebrating men and institutions that had made Florence famous.
Some of the paintings, executed by Cosimo Ulivelli, Angelo Gori and Giacomo Chiavistelli,
were destroyed in a fire in 1762 and replaced through the intervention of the artists Giuseppe
del Moro, Giuliano Traballesi and Giuseppe Terreni.
Between 1696 and 1699, Cosimo III commissioned Giuseppe Nasini and Giuseppe Tonelli to
decorate the ceilings of the wing overlooking the Arno with subjects celebrating religious
events connected with the history of Florence , or exalting the virtues of the Grand Dukes.

The Grand Duke Cosimo III (1670-1723) made major extensions to the Gallery. In the west
wing several rooms were opened to house the collections of self-portraits, porcelain, medals,
drawings and bronzes.
At the beginning of the west corridor was the Fonderia, that is the Grand-ducal pharmacy
which also comprised the museum of natural curiosities.
On display here, among other things, were mummies, stuffed animals, ostrich eggs and
rhinoceros' horns.
The visitors entered the Gallery via Buontalenti's staircase, at the end of which Cosimo III set
up a vestibule full of ancient statues and reliefs, now no longer in existence.
The extensions and the display areas created at the time of Cosimo III responded both to the
criteria of maximum ostentation of the family assets and to the encyclopaedic taste that
characterised many princely collections, comprising both works of art and natural wonders.

18th century
In 1737, with the death of Gian Gastone, the Medici dynasty came to an end.
Through the agreement of the same year, his sister Anna Maria secured for the city of
Florence the fabulous collections of art gathered by her ancestors.
The successor, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, spent very little time in Tuscany and the State was
governed by a regent.
A vast graphic survey was carried out in the Uffizi gallery, co-ordinated by Benedetto Vincenzo
De Greyss. His drawings, produced between 1748 and 1765, allow us to see what the Gallery
looked like before the Lorraine transformations.
His successor, Peter Leopold, opened the Gallery to the public in 1769, promising a radical
transformation of the same, which was carried out in the years 1780-82 by Luigi Lanzi.
In line with the rational and pedagogic criteria of the Enlightenment, the gallery was
reordered, separating art from science, and splitting the unity of the arts which resided in the
common denominator of drawing.
The armoury was suppressed, the collection of majolica sold, and the scientific instruments
were transferred to a new museum, La Specola.
In 1779 Gaspero Maria Paoletti designed the Niobe Room in the west corridor. This large room
was decorated in neoclassical style and housed the group of statues of Niobe and her
children, brought to Florence from the Villa Medici in Rome.
Peter Leopold wanted a new entrance for the Gallery, and the project was implemented by
Zanobi del Rosso, who extended the old staircase reaching as far as the entrance to the
theatre by adding monumental flights which terminated in the Vestibule. Here visitors are
welcomed by the busts of the figures of the Medici family who made the greatest contribution
to the wealth of the Gallery's collections.
19th century present
In the course of the nineteenth century (1842-1856), to complete Vasari's original project, 28
marble statues of illustrious Tuscans were made and set up in the niches of the pilasters on
the outside of the Gallery.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the tendency to transform the Uffizi into a

gallery of paintings was accentuated; as a result a number of Renaissance statues were

moved to the National Museum of the Bargello, while various Etruscan statues were
transferred to the Archaeological Museum.
Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the Medici
theatre was divided into two floors, and the upper part was used to extend the Gallery. This
resulted in the creation of six large rooms, the first of which were renovated in 1956 to a
design by Michelucci, Scarpa and Gardella.
In 1993 a car bomb attack resulted in severe damage to several rooms in the Gallery and the
Vasarian Corridor.
In 1998 an international competition for the Gallery exit was won by Arata Isozaki.
In forthcoming years, it is planned to extend the Gallery to occupy the entire first floor of the
palazzo of the Uffizi.

POGLEDAJ
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