The Uffizi Gallery covers
an area of about 8.000 sq.m.. and contains
one of the most important collections of art
of all times, including classical sculpture
and paintings on canvas and wood by 13th to
18th century Italian and foreign schools.
The Gallery of the Uffizi
was also the first museum ever to be opened
to the public: in fact the Grand Duke granted
permission to visit it on request from the
year 1591. Its four centuries of history make
the Uffizi Gallery the oldest museum in the
world.
Cosimo I de' Medici decided to build the Palace,
whose construction was started by Giorgio
Vasari in 1560 and later completed by Buontalenti,
who designed the famous Tribune, to house
the administrative offices (or "uffizi")
of the Government because Palazzo Vecchio,
which also overlooks Piazza della Signoria,
had become too small to hold them all.
However it was his son Francesco
I who was responsible for starting to turn
the palace into a museum in 1581, when he
closed the second floor Gallery with huge
windows and arranged part of the grand-ducal
collection of classical statues, medals, jewellery,
weapons, paintings and scientific instruments
here.
