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Galleria degli Uffizi Review
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Galleria degli Uffizi 
- Address: Piazzale degli Uffizi 6, Piazza della Signoria, Florence | Map It
- Phone: 055/23885
- www.uffizi.firenze.it
- Category: Museums/Galleries, Castles/Palaces
- Location: Piazza della Signoria
Fodor's Review:
The venerable Uffizi Gallery occupies the top floor of the U-shaped Palazzo degli Uffizi (Uffizi Palace) fronting on the Arno, designed by Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) in 1560 to hold the uffizi (administrative offices) of the Medici grand duke Cosimo I (1519-74). Later, the Medici installed their art collections here, creating what was Europe's first modern museum, open to the public (at first only by request) since 1591.
Among the collection's highlights are Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano, its brutal chaos of lances one of the finest visual metaphors for warfare ever captured in paint; the Madonna and Child with Two Angels, by Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-69), in which the impudent eye contact established by the angel in the foreground would have been unthinkable prior to the Renaissance; the Birth of Venus and Primavera by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), the goddess of the former seeming to float on water and the fairy-tale charm of the latter exhibiting the painter's idiosyncratic genius at its zenith; the portraits of the Renaissance duke Federico da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza, by Piero della Francesca (circa 1420-92); the Madonna of the Goldfinch, by Raphael (1483-1520), which, though darkened by time, captures an aching tenderness between mother and child; Michelangelo's Doni Tondo (a brilliantly-hued painting demonstrating that Michelangelo was, in fact, a colorist of the higest order); Self-Portrait as an Old Man by Rembrandt (1606-69); the Venus of Urbino by Titian (circa 1485-1576); and the splendid Bacchus by Caravaggio (circa 1571-1610). In the last two works, both great paintings, the approaches to myth and sexuality are diametrically opposed, to put it mildly. If panic sets in at the prospect of absorbing all this art at one go, visit in the late afternoon, when it's less crowded. A bar inside the gallery is a good place for a coffee break; for a close-up view of the Palazzo Vecchio, step out onto the terrace. Advance tickets can be purchased from Consorzio ITA. Note that with special exhibitions, the price without the reservation fee is $9.50.
- Cost: EUR 6.50, reservation fee EUR 3
- Open: Tues.-Sun. 8:15-6:50
- Other location: Consorzio ITA, Piazza Pitti 1, Florence, 50121, 055/294883
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