Tour with private guide at the Palatine gallery of Palazzo Pitti – exclusive service!
Tour details
DURATION: around 3 hours
FREQUENCY: everyday but Monday, weekly day-off of the Gallery.
Included in the price: private and professional guide service, entrance tickets for the Palatine Gallery, earphones for groups larger than 7 participants.
NB: the ticket includes also the Modern Art Gallery, Royal Apartments, the Granduke’s treasure and the History of Museum of Costume and Fashion. Once the private tour is over, the visitors can visit these museums, being careful not to exit from Pitti Palace, where all these museums are.
Tour description: accompanied by the expert guide, you will visit the main hall of the Palatine Gallery. This is a guided tour inside the bigger residence of the Medici family in Florence, Pitti Palace. It contains a wide exposition of works of art, divided in more museums. This tour is a fascinating tour inside the Palatine Gallery.
The rooms of the palatine gallery were the headquarters of the Medici family and the winter residence of the Grand Duke and his wife. The decorations of the official rooms, work of the greatest baroque painter, Pietro da Cortona, join marvellous stucco with the frescos of the ceilings. In this extraordinary background it is organized the private collection of the Medici: at the walls you will find masterpieces of the great masters from the Sixteenth Century to the Eighteenth Century such as Raffaello, Tiziano, Rubens and Van Dijk.
Works of art, furniture and decorative details take back to different moments of the daily life of the Prince, regulated by a strict regulation and described in the official documents of the court.
Brief history of Palazzo Pitti
Starting from the outside, the imposing façade of Palazzo Pitti stands out for being rustic. Great squared bosses compose the building, formed by a central block plus two smaller wings. Because of its dimension, Pitti Palace is considered the biggest of the buildings of Florence.
Filippo Brunelleschi was in charge of the initial project, wanted by Luca Pitti in the first half of 1400. The works for the building ceased just when the owner had difficulties in proceeding with the project, but the century after they started again thanks to the Medici family who acquired the building. It was Eleonora from Toledo who bought it in order to move there with her husband Cosimo I. (It is true, it was a woman who bough it!) From that moment the original asset was changed from the most important architect of the century: Bartolomeo Ammannati, Giulio Parigi and Alfonso Parigi.
After having hosted six generations of the Medici family, the palace was acquired from the Lorena family, which proceeded with the works. Giuseppe Ruggieri worked at the buildings and after him, Pasquale Puccianti.
