Tuscany Travel Guide

The Uffizi, Florence

This museum is the ultimate primer on the Renaissance, starting with Giotto and running through Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio and beyond. This historic progression is only fitting, as the building, originally the uffizi (“offices") of the ruling Medici family, was designed by Giorgio Vasori, who wrote the world's first art history text. Some 1,700 works are on display, with another 1,400 in storage. Though small, these galleries shelter an embarrassing number of mosterpieces that demand al least three or four hours.

TOP 10 Paintings
1- Birth of Venus (Botticelli)
2- The Annunciation (Leonardo da Vinci)
3- Holy Family (Michelangelo)
4- Maestą (Giotto)
5- Bacchus (Caravaggio)
6- Primavera (Botticelli)
7- Frederico di Montefeltro and Battista Sforza (Piero della Francesca)
8- Venus of Urbino (Titian) 9- Madonna of the Long Neck (Parmigianino)
10- Battle of San Romano (Uccelo)

1 Birth of Venus - Botticelli's Venus on half shell,painted in 1486, is the ultimate Renaissance beauty. The pose is a classical Venus, while the face is said to be modelled on Simonetta Vespucci, the girlfriend of Piero de' Medici and cousin to explorer AmerigoVespucci.

2 The Annunciation - One of the earliest works (1475) of that versatile master Leonardo da Vinci.We can already see his attention to detail in the drapery and flower-bedecked lawn.Leonardo's patented sfumato landscape creates the illusion of great distance by introducing a hazy atmosphere.

3 Holy Family - A rare panel painting (1504) by Michelangelo, the Holy Family owes much to Signorelli, but its twisting figures, exotic saturated colours and lounging nudes predict Mannerism.

4 Maestą Giotto's - Maestą of 1310 is revolutionary compared with near by similar scenes by his older contemporaries Duccio and Cimabue. Here the Madonna has bulk beneath her clothing, and depth is created through the placing of the surrounding figures on solid ground.

5 Bacchus - One of Caravaggio's earliest works (1594) shows he is already marrying an intense attentino to detai! (evident in the Flemish-style stili life of fruit), with earthy naturalism in the boy-like good. Also obvious is his early fascination with playing harsh light off deep shadows.

6 Primavera - Botticelli's companion to his Birth of Venus, the Primavera (1478; above) is populated by goddesses and over 500 species of plant. The painting's exact meaning is not known but it may be a Neoplatonic allegory of spring based around a poem by Poliziano.

7 Frederico di Montefeltro and Battista Sforza - Piero della Francesca's intense,psychological style of portraiture unflinchingly deplcts his hook nosed patron duke literally warts and all.

8 Venus of Urbino - A great influence on the depiction of the nude all the way through to Manel. Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538, above) was widely copied in the 18th and 19th centuries,.The Venetian master also played with lightand shadow, settino a luminous Venus against a dark background.

9 Madonna of the long Neck - Parmigianino's Madonna of 1534 shows off Mannerism at its twisted, exaggerated,elegant best,with an impossibly sinuous Madonna and a weirdly over sized infant Jesus. Though left unfinished,it would become a touchstone of the Mannerist movement and Parmigianino's masterpiece.

10 Battle of San Romano - A master of perspective, Uccello experimented with it to the detriment of his scenes.The broken lances in this third of his masterpiece (1456; other thirds are in Paris and London) over-define a perspective piane. Also, the background tilts at a radically different angle to the foreground.


The Uffizi Collections:
Botticeli (Rooms 10-14) Tear your eyes away tram the famed Birth of Venus and Primavera to peruse other Botticelli masterpieces such as Pallas and the Centaur and an Adoration of the Magi featuring a selt-portrait (in yellow robes on the right). Compare that Adoration with those by Botticelli's student, Filippino Lippi. and by Botticelli's contemporary (and Michelangelo's teacher), Ghirlandaio.

Early Renaissance (Rooms 7-9) The earthiness of Masaccio and the delicacy 01 Fra Angelico join the likes of Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello in Room 7. Renaissance ideals develop further with anatomically exacting works by the Pollaiuolo brothers and the flowing lines of Masaccio's more elegant student Filippo Lippi (whose Madonna and Child with Angels is below) These le ad up to the languid grace of Lippi's protčgč, Botticelli.

Pre-Renaissance (Rooms 2-6) The first Uffizi room bridges the medieval and proto-Renaissance with a trio of Maestąs, from Cimabue's Byzantine take, through Duccio's Sienese Gothic style, to Giotto's version. Simone Martini's Annunciation represents the graceful14th-century Sienese school. Gentile da Fabriano and Lorenzo Monaco give one final, colourful shout of the medieval in the International Gothic style of the early 1400s.

Leonardo da Vinci (Room 15) Room 15 celebrates Verrocchio's star pupils, including Lorenzo di Credi, Botticini, Umbrian master Perugino (Raphael's teacherL and Leonardo da Vinci himself. As an apprentice, Leonardo painted the angel on the left of Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ. Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciat/on (see p8), his unfinished, chaotic Adorat/on of the Magi, and Signorelli's Crucifixion round out the room.

High Renaissance and Mannerism (Rooms 19, 25-321 After some Peruginos, Signorellis and a Northern interlude, Room 25 brings out the Renaissance big guns: Michelangelo and Raphael Andrea del Sarto and his students developed Michelangelo's colours and asymmetrical positioning into Mannerism. Meanwhile, the High Renaissance Venetians Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto explored new realms of colour, light and composition

Northern Italian and European Masters (Rooms 20-23) The works are fine but not outstanding. Northern Italian masters Bellini, Giorgione, Mantegna and Correggio are interspersed with their German and Flemish contemporaries Cranach, Holbein and Durer. Portrait of the Artist's Father is Durer's first work, painted at the age of 19, These rooms mostly provide a needed menta I break before the High Renaissance collections.

The Tribune (Room 18) The Uffizi's originai display space is a chamber with motherof-pearl tiled-dome and inlaid pietre dure (stone) floor and table It was built by Francesco I to show oH the Medici Venus and other Classical statues. Portraits by Bronzino and Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino's lute-plucking Musician Angel, and Raphael's St John in the Desert cover the walls.

Works in the U-shaped Corridor The main corridor linking the galleries is lined with Classical statues - mostly Roman copies of Greek originals (left), Its ceiling vaults are frescoed (1581) with intricate grotesques celebrating Florence's history, thinkers, leaders and artists, Views from the short south corridor are justly celebrated

Baroque (Rooms 33-44) The Ufflzi's post-Renaissance collections are not outstanding, save for a few by CaravaggioBacchus (see p9!, a SacnIice of Isaac and Medusa - self-portraits by Rembrandt and Rubens, and Artemisia Gentileschi's gory Judith and Holofernes.

Works in the Vasari Corridor The kilometre- (half-mile-) long corridor between the Pitti Palace and Uffizi was damaged during a 1993 terrorist bombing, It is lined with works from the 17th to 20th centuries, including self-portraits, and open for booked guided tours for a limited period of the year.

Uffizi

 The Annunciation (Leonardo da Vinci)

Holy Family (Michelangelo)