Florence in a day guided tour
Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia Gallery and Florence Walking Tour
This special tour combination includes all must-see museums and monuments of Florence. The tour includes the guided visit of two museums, the Uffizi Gallery Tour and the Accademia Gallery tour. The tour also includes a guided walking tour of Florence city centre, from Piazza Duomo, to Piazza della Signoria and Ponte Vecchio.
Language: English
Frequency: every day except Monday
From 1 November to 31 March, this tour is run every day except for Monday and Wednesday.
Starting time: 11.15 am
Duration: about 4 hours and 30' (free time from 12.15 pm and 1.30 pm)
SPECIAL PRICE - Price: 109,00 euro per person instead of 124,00 euro.
In low season (November - February) price is 101,00 euro per person.
Price includes: guided tour, pre-booking fees, tickets for both museums and earphones for groups with more than 15 participants.
This tour will take place rain or shine and from 1 participant onwards
Children: free under 6 years of age. Children 6-14 pay reduced price ticket 89,00 euro if in company of an adult participant. Low season rate for children 81,00 euro.
Meeting point with your guide: Accademia Gallery, Via Ricasoli 60. Please arrive 15 minutes before the tour starting time.
MAJOR ADVANTAGE: the visit uses only one single language at a time. Timed Entry, no need to queue. Don’t waste precious time waiting in long lines. Enter with us.
Bronzino at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
Bronzino at the Uffizi: the portrait of Eleonora di Toledo with her son Giovanni
Eleonora di Toledo (1519-1562) married Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1539, and bore him eight children. Here she is shown with her first son, the second-born Giovanni (1543-1562), future cardinal. To this cherished son the court portrait painter Bronzino dedicated an individual portrait, also in the Tribuna. Wearing a coral pendant, an amulet against early death, Giovanni is shown smiling, holding a goldfinch in his hand. “The portrait of S. Don Giovanni is truly alive” wrote Pier Francesco Riccio, Cosimo’s steward, in 1545. In the portrait of Giovanni with his mother the pose is less immediate, almost in harmony with the melancholy gaze of the woman.
Eleonora’s role as a mother is marked by the pomegranates embroidered on her dress, a symbol of fecundity which appears again on the ceiling of her chapel in Palazzo Vecchio, also frescoed by Bronzino. The brocade dress with Spanish embroidery is identical to the one found in 1857 inside the tomb of the Duchess in the Medici Chapel. The background landscape may show the Grand Duke’s dominions.
