Address: Piazza Pitti, Palazzo Pitti
The Palatine Gallery in the Pitti
Palace takes its name from the reigning family in whose
palace it was housed and was opened to the public by Leopoldo of
Lorraine in 1828. Its present layout preserves the character of a private picture gallery with
a sumptuous combination of lavish interior decoration and the
rich picture frames ordered by the Medici themselves. Unlike most
of the museums arranged in recent times, the Palatine Gallery's
layout follows neither chronological order nor schools of
painting, revealing instead in its hanging and sheer numerical
size the personal taste of the great collectors who lived in the
palace.
The rooms at present occupied by the gallery are reached by the
Ammannati staircase and were the apartments and audience chambers
of the Medici Grand Dukes. Some of these overlooking the Square
were frescoed by Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) with an imposing
decorative cycle which makes use of classical myth to allude to
the life and education of the prince. The imposing ceilings with
their frescoes and large stucco decorations are one of the most
important examples of the Baroque style in Florence and provide a
splendid framework for the sixteenth to eighteenth paintings on
show.
One of the main nucleuses of the collection are the paintings by
Titian and Raphael, which entered the Medici collection in the
1640s with the dowry of Vittoria della Rovere, last discendent of
the Dukes of Urbino and wife of Ferdinando II de' Medici. Among
the works of Titian (1490?-1576) is the Portrait of a Gentleman,
famous on account of the mysterious identity of the sitter and
the Magdalen painted for the Duke of Urbino. Among the Raphaels
are Leonardo-inspired portrait of Maddalena Doni, the Madonna of
the Grand Duke bought by Ferdinando III and the famous Madonna of the Chair representative of Raphael's last phase.
Seventeenth century painting is well represented. Of outstanding
interest are Rubens' Four Philosophers and Allegory of War and
the portrait of Isabella Clara Eugenia. Van Dyck's magnificent
portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio shows all the artist's richness
of colouring, and Giusto Sustermans' portraits immortalize the
whole grand ducal family. Spanish painting is well represented by
the sweetness of Murillo's Madonna and Child. Apart from
exceptionally important works by Bronzino (1503-1572), Fra
Bartolomeo (1472- 1517) and Piero di Pollaiolo (1441-1496), the
Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio (1573-1610) and the seventeenth
century portraits of Pourbus and Velasquez, the decoration of
many of the rooms where they are hung is also important, both
historically and artistically. The Music Room for example is
decorated and furnished in the Neo-classical taste, while the
Putti Room is devoted entirely to Flemish painting. The Stove
Room is one of the masterpieces of Pietro da Cortona, who
frescoed it in 1637 with the Four Ages of Man, the Ages of Gold,
Silver, Bronze and Iron. Apart from being one of the major
monuments of Baroque painting, testifying to the Medici court's
awareness of leading Roman trends of the day, the Stove Room
reveals the Grand Duke Ferdinando II as an alert and intelligent
patron in the tradition of his family at a moment when Florentine
culture was going through a phase of diminished splendour.
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