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Summary of these posts so far:

• The first three posts in this series provided some general information for travel: answers to questions I wish I’d known enough to ask before I went to Italy. The first, on planning, packing, and flights, is here. The second, on car rentals and driving in Italy, is here. The third is on Italian restaurants and the hotel we stayed at, here.
• The Academy, visiting museums in general, and trains to Florence: here.
• Florence’s Cathedral, a.k.a. the Duomo, markets in Florence, restrooms, and footwork: here.
• Museo dell’Opera dell Duomo, with a few words on the Baptistery and Campanile: here.

This week: the Uffizi Gallery, Loggia dei Lanzi, and a few more words on parking in Florence.

History of the Uffizi

The Uffizi Gallery is housed in a huge complex whose core building was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici from Giorgio Vasari. Vasari (who is today most famous for his Lives of the Artists) began the work in 1560. The building provided office space (uffizi) for Florentine magistrates, with a gallery on the top floor for the Medici art collection.

The galleries gradually took over the building as the Medici increased their collection of Renaissance sculpture and painting. The last Medici heiress bequeathed the Uffizi to the city of Florence. Today it is the most visited museum in Italy.

Layout and how much time to allow

The Uffizi covers 3 large floors in a U-shape: map here. Most visitors start with the main painting collection, on the top (second) floor. The cafe, at the far end of the U on the second floor, has an outdoor terrace with a view of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo. The food is less scrumptious than the view, but it’s a good place to take a break. (More on visiting museums here.)

Our tour (booked via Things to Do) started at 9 a.m., when the Uffizi opened, and ran about 1.5 hours. There were 5 visitors in our group, which made it difficult to stay together: the Uffizi was very crowded first thing in the morning. As with the Academy and Duomo tour, the participants had headphones and the guide had a mic.

After the tour was over my husband and I had lunch in the cafe, then stayed to see more of the galleries. It turned out that in the afternoon, the museum was far less crowded, hence far more pleasant to wander through. If your schedule allows, you might want to visit in the afternoon.

We spent 6 hours at the Uffizi, including a brief lunch. If you focus only on the 2nd floor, you could finish in 2-3 hours … but the lower level was a “wow” for me. More on that in a moment.

Highlights of the Uffizi

The Uffizi is famous for its massive collection of top-notch paintings, from medieval to modern. It’s especially strong in Italian Renaissance and Baroque paintings. I was far less excited by the sculptures, which are mostly from the Medici collection of Roman works.

In no particular order, here are a few of the works that I loved seeing in person and up close. These are all famous, so you can easily find more information if you’re interested.

• Leonardo’s Adoration  (incomplete) – its colors are brighter than they seem in photos. On the composition, see Innovators in Painting Ch. 23.
• Filippo Lippi’s Madonna & Child – absolutely charming. One of my husband’s favorite paintings.

• Piero della Francesca, Duke & Duchess of Urbino, 1467-72.

• Uccello’s Battle of San Romano – larger than I expected. The man was obsessed with linear perspective: it’s fun to look at the details (lances, horses) with that in mind. See Innovators in Painting, Ch. 18.

• Botticelli’s faces, such as the angel on a fresco of the Annunciation, below left. I prefer the Botticellis that I’m unfamiliar with to famous ones such as Birth of Venus and Primavera. It’s easier to actually see a work if I haven’t already seen dozens of reproductions. Although wandering through the Uffizi, and Florence in general, I was constantly reminded that seeing a work in person is a much different experience than seeing a photo in a book.

• Maesta paintings (Virgin in Majesty) by Giotto, Duccio and Cimabue. Comparing the differences, you can see the effort leading up to the Renaissance. Also: I never got a sense from photos of how very large they are.

• Hugo van der Goes, Portinari  Triptych. I didn’t expect this one to be so large, either. It was painted for a Florentine businessman working for the branch of the Medici bank in Bruges; when the businessman brought it back to Italy, it had an enormous impact on Florentine art, since it was one of the first examples seen there of oil painting. On oil vs. tempera painting, see Innovators in Painting, Ch. 16.

Lower level

The artworks on the Uffizi’s lower level would be more than enough to furnish a major museum. My favorite galleries housed a stunning collection of hundreds of self-portraits by artists. Seeing the choices each artist made about how to portray himself or herself was fascinating. I had no idea this collection existed, so stumbling across it was truly serendipitous.

Also on the lower level: more Renaissance art. Bronzino’s portraits of the Medici family are fabulous. Would anyone except historians remember the Medici name if they hadn’t been patrons and collectors of art?

Loggia dei Lanzi

Before our tour of the Uffizi, we had time to look at the sculptures that stand in the Loggia dei Lanzi (an open-air arcade) and in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. My favorite is Cellini’s Perseus, second from right in the photos below.

Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women (second from left above) is interesting more for the composition than the subject. Giambologna was experimenting with a complex composition: someone else gave it the title.

Also in the Piazza are reproductions of Michelangelo’s David (photo on right above), of Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes, and of Donatello’s Marzocco, the lion that symbolizes Florence.

Travel to Florence from Selvatelle (our hotel)

The day of our Uffizi tour we intended to go to Florence by train, as we had the day before, but for some reason the train schedule would have required us to go from Pontedera west to Pisa, then east to Florence: more than 2.5 hours. So we looked up parking garages and drove into the Sant’ Ambrogio Parcheggio in western Florence. Like other major parking garages, it’s marked with a large white “P” on a blue background, and has a sign that shows how many spots are currently available. See this post on parking in Tuscany.

From the Parcheggio Sant’ Ambrogio to the Uffizi was a longish walk, but it takes you through less touristy part of Florence, and past Santa Croce. (More on Santa Croce in a later post.) Someone told us a couple days later that the Sant’ Ambrogio area is more dangerous than most others in Florence, because there are lots of foreign students (= US students) and therefore lots of drugs. We were there during daylight hours only, and had no problems.

Next week: the Museo dell’ Opificio delle Pietre Dure, or museum of hard rocks.

More

• My post from 2018 on 5 favorites at the Uffizi is here.
• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here. For examples of favorite recommendations from past years, click here.