Search for Museums and Paintings

Florence / Italy

Florence ) is a city in central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most-populated city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages". Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy . The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes has ranked it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor; furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub. In 2008 the city had the 17th-highest average income in Italy.

Museo di Firenze com'era

Florence / Italy

Museo di Firenze com'era was a history and archaeology museum, one of the civic museums of the city of Florence. The museum was located on Via dell'Oriuolo in a former convent of the Oblates. It closed permanently in October 2010 to make space for the enlargement of the Biblioteca delle Oblate. Some of its exhibits will be incorporated into a new City museum portraying Florence through the ages, to be housed in Palazzo Vecchio.The museum's collections included the 14 surviving paintings of Medici villas by Giusto Utens. These were transferred in 2014 to a new permanent gallery at Petraia Villa Medici.

Palazzo Antinori

Florence / Italy

Palazzo Antinori is a Renaissance palace located at the north end of Via de' Tornabuoni, where it makes an odd corner with Via dei Pecori, Via del Trebbio, and converts into Via dei Rondinelli, in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.

Palazzo di Parte Guelfa

Florence / Italy

The Palazzo di Parte Guelfa is a historical building in Florence, central Italy. During the Middle Ages, it was the headquarters of the Guelph party in the city .

Palazzo Gondi

Florence / Italy

Palazzo Gondi is a palace in Florence, Italy, located a block from Piazza della Signoria. It was built in 1490 under design by Giuliano da Sangallo, who was inspired by other major works of stately buildings in the city, such as Palazzo Medici and Palazzo Strozzi. Among the elements borrowed from these earlier works are the cube-shape set around a central courtyard, the ashlar sloping on each of three floors, and the arched windows. Compared to his models, however, Sangallo was able to modify the use of these elements, making it one of the most successful Florentine buildings of its time. The most innovative element is in the design of the windows: the profile of stones arranged in a radial pattern, which resemble the facets of a precious stone. The windows on the second floor were designed slightly wider than the others to compensate for the optical foreshortening. The construction dragged on, and the building remained incomplete for several centuries. At the end of the 17th century Antonio Maria Ferri worked on the architecture and Matteo Bonechi on the paintings. The building was flanked by an old family house belonging to the Asini family, demolished around 1870 to widen the road along Palazzo Vecchio. On that occasion the building was also expanded with the creation of the third door and the construction of a new "slice" of the building that increased the number of windows on the facade, creating a similar perspective on Via de' Gondi. Accommodation on the south side had been designed by Giuseppe Poggi, the architect of Piazzale Michelangelo, but was demolished in 1874. Leonardo da Vinci had lived in one of the destroyed houses and is said to have painted the Mona Lisa there. Today the building still belongs to descendants of the family, but on the ground floor are a bar and other businesses. In the central courtyard, a portico with Corinthian columns on four sides, there is a 17th-century fountain, which uses water from the Boboli Gardens which also supplies the Fontana del Nettuno. From here begins the monumental staircase to the upper floors. The porch is a statue of Roman Togata. Among the decorations inside the palace, there is a fresco and some paintings by Italian and French artists. On the first floor there is also a monumental fireplace which was designed by Sangallo.

Palazzo Fenzi

Florence / Italy

Palazzo Fenzi is a palace in Florence, Italy. Built in the 16th century for the Castelli family by Gherardo Silvani, it was later enlarged by the Marucelli family. In 1829 it was bought by Emanuele Fenzi in order to house his bank and his family. It is currently home to the History Department of the University of Florence.

Palazzo Pazzi

Florence / Italy

The Palazzo Pazzi, also known as the Palazzo della Congiura or Palazzo Pazzi-Quaratesi is a Renaissance-style palace and is located on Via del Proconsolo 10 at the corner with Borgo Albizzi in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. The palace is between the Palazzo Nonfinito and the Palazzo Pazzi-Ammannati to the north.

Palazzo Strozzi

Florence / Italy

Palazzo Strozzi is a palace in Florence, Italy.

Ponte Santa Trinita

Florence / Italy

The Ponte Santa Trìnita is a Renaissance bridge in Florence, Italy, spanning the Arno. The Ponte Santa Trìnita is the oldest elliptic arch bridge in the world, characterised by three flattened ellipses. The outside spans each measure 29 m with the centre span being 32 m in length. The two neighbouring bridges are the Ponte Vecchio, to the east, and the Ponte alla Carraia to the west. The bridge was constructed by the Florentine architect Bartolomeo Ammannati from 1567 to 1569. Its site, downstream of the Ponte Vecchio, is a major link in the medieval street plan of Florence, which has been bridged at this site since the 13th century. The wooden bridge of 1252 was swept away in a flood seven years later and was rebuilt in stone; this structure was in turn destroyed by a flood in 1333. The bridge of five arches constructed by Taddeo Gaddi was also destroyed in the flood of 1557, which occasioned Ammannati's replacement. Four ornamental statues of the Seasons were added to the bridge in 1608, as part of the wedding celebrations of Cosimo II de' Medici with Maria Magdalena of Austria: Spring by Pietro Francavilla, Summer and Autumn by Giovanni Caccini, and Winter by Taddeo Landini. On the night between 3 and 4 of August 1944, the bridge was destroyed by retreating German troops on the advance of the British 8th Army. A Bailey bridge was built for temporary use by the Royal engineers. The bridge was reconstructed in 1958 with original stones raised from the Arno or taken from the same quarry, under the direction of architect Riccardo Gizdulich and engineer Emilio Brizzi. The missing head of Primavera was recovered from the bed of the Arno in October 1961.

Piazza della Libertà, Florence

Florence / Italy

Piazza della Libertà is the northernmost point of the historic centre of Florence. It was created in the 19th century during works to produce the Viali di Circonvallazione around the city. It hosts Triumphal Arch of the Lorraine and, in winter, an ice rink for skating.

Load More