Palazzo Pitti facts for kids
The Palazzo Pitti, also known as the Pitti Palace, is a huge palace in Florence, Italy. It's mostly built in the Renaissance style. You can find it on the south side of the Arno River, not far from the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. The main part of the palace was started in 1458. It was originally the home of Luca Pitti, a rich banker from Florence.
The powerful Medici family bought the palace in 1549. It then became the main home for the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Over time, the palace became a huge treasure house. Later generations of rulers collected many paintings, fancy plates, jewelry, and other valuable items.
In the late 1700s, Napoleon used the palace as a base. Later, for a short time, it was the main royal palace for the newly united Kingdom of Italy. In 1919, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy gave the palace and everything inside it to the Italian people.
Today, the Pitti Palace is the largest group of museums in Florence. The main building is about 32,000 square meters (about 344,000 square feet). It is now divided into several main galleries and museums, which you can read about below.
Contents
History of the Palace
How the Pitti Palace Began
The construction of this strong-looking building started in 1458. It was ordered by Luca Pitti, a banker who was a friend of Cosimo de' Medici. There are many stories about the early days of the Pitti Palace. Some say Pitti wanted its windows to be bigger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi.
A historian named Giorgio Vasari once said that Filippo Brunelleschi was the architect. But today, most people believe that Luca Fancelli was the main architect. Brunelleschi actually died 12 years before the palace began. The design of the palace, with its rough stone walls, gives it a very strong and serious look. This style was popular because it reminded people of ancient Roman buildings.
Work on the palace stopped after Luca Pitti lost money in 1464. He died in 1472, and the building was still not finished.
The Medici Family Takes Over
In 1549, the palace was sold to Eleonora di Toledo. She was the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici, who later became the Grand Duke of Tuscany. When they moved in, Cosimo asked Vasari to make the palace much larger. A new section was added to the back, making the palace more than twice its original size.
Vasari also built the Vasari Corridor. This was a secret walkway above the ground. It connected Cosimo's old palace, the Palazzo Vecchio, to the Pitti Palace. It went through the Uffizi Gallery and over the Ponte Vecchio bridge. This allowed the Grand Duke and his family to travel safely between their official home and the Pitti Palace.
At first, the Pitti Palace was mainly used for guests and special events. But later, Cosimo's son Francesco I and his wife Johanna of Austria made it their permanent home. They also moved the Medici family's art collection there.
Land behind the palace, on the Boboli hill, was bought to create large, beautiful gardens. These are now known as the Boboli Gardens. The first design for the gardens included an amphitheater behind the palace. Plays were performed there for the Medici court.
How the Palace Grew
After the gardens were started, the architect Bartolomeo Ammanati focused on building a large courtyard behind the main palace. This courtyard connected the palace to its new gardens. Ammanati also added special "kneeling" windows to the main front of the palace.
Between 1558 and 1570, Ammanati built a grand staircase. This made it easier to reach the main floor (called the piano nobile). He also extended the sides of the palace towards the garden. On the garden side of the courtyard, Ammanati built a small cave-like structure called a "grotto."
Later, in 1616, a competition was held to design additions to the main front of the palace. Giulio Parigi won, and work began in 1618. In the 1700s, two more sections were added by Giuseppe Ruggeri. These additions helped create the large open square in front of the palace.
One side of the Boboli Gardens has a unique grotto designed by Bernardo Buontalenti. Its lower part was started by Vasari. The inside of the grotto mixes architecture with nature. It has copies of Michelangelo's unfinished slave statues. These statues seem to hold up the ceiling, which is painted like a rustic forest.
Later Rulers and Changes
The Pitti Palace remained the main home for the Medici family until the last male Medici died in 1737. After that, the palace went to the new rulers of Tuscany, the Austrian House of Habsburg-Lorraine.
Napoleon briefly took control of Italy and used the palace. Later, in 1860, Tuscany became part of the House of Savoy. When Florence was the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II lived in the palace until 1871.
His grandson, Victor Emmanuel III, gave the palace to the nation in 1919. The palace and other buildings in the Boboli Gardens were then turned into five separate art galleries and a museum. These museums hold many of the original items from the palace, plus other valuable collections. Many of the rooms you see today were decorated in the 1600s and early 1700s.
Palatine Gallery
The Palatine Gallery is the main art gallery in the Pitti Palace. It holds over 500 paintings, mostly from the Renaissance period. These paintings were once part of the private art collections of the Medici family and the rulers who came after them.
The gallery feels like a private collection. The artworks are displayed much like they would have been in the grand rooms of a home, not necessarily in order by date or art style. You can see works by famous artists like Raphael, Titian, Perugino, Correggio, Peter Paul Rubens, and Pietro da Cortona.
The most beautiful rooms were decorated by Pietro da Cortona in the fancy Baroque style. He painted a series of frescoes showing the "Four Ages of Man." These paintings were very popular. He was then asked to decorate the main reception rooms. These five "Planetary Rooms" have ornate ceilings with frescoes and detailed stucco work. They celebrate the Medici family and their leadership. These rooms later inspired the Planet Rooms at Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles in France.
The collection was first opened to the public in the late 1700s by Grand Duke Leopold I. He wanted to be popular after the Medici family's rule ended.
Rooms of the Palatine Gallery
The Palatine Gallery has 28 rooms, including:
- Room of Castagnoli: Named after the artist of the ceiling frescoes. It shows portraits of the Medici and Lorraine families. It also has the Table of the Muses, a beautiful table made of stone inlays.
- Room of the Ark: Contains a painting by Giovan Battista Caracciolo. The ceiling was frescoed in 1816.
- Room of Psyche: Named for its ceiling frescoes. It has paintings by Salvator Rosa.
- Hall of Poccetti: The ceiling frescoes are now thought to be by Matteo Rosselli. It has a large table from 1716 and works by Rubens and Pontormo.
- Room of Prometheus: Named for its frescoes. It holds many round paintings, including the Madonna with the Child by Filippino Lippi and two portraits by Botticelli.
- Room of Justice: Has a frescoed ceiling and displays portraits by Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese.
- Room of Ulysses: Frescoed in 1815. It contains early works by Filippino Lippi and Raphael.
- Room of Iliad: Contains two "Madonna" paintings by Andrea del Sarto and works by Artemisia Gentileschi.
- Room of Saturn: Holds famous paintings by Raphael, including the Portrait of Agnolo Doni and the Madonna of the Chair. It also has an Annunciation by Andrea del Sarto.
- Room of Jupiter: Contains the Veiled Lady, a famous portrait by Raphael. Other works by Rubens, Andrea del Sarto, and Perugino are also here.
- Room of Mars: Features works by Rubens, including The Consequences of War. The ceiling has a fresco by Pietro da Cortona.
- Room of Apollo: Contains a Madonna with Saints by Il Rosso and two paintings by Titian, including a Magdalen.
- Room of Venus: Contains the Venus Italica statue by Antonio Canova, ordered by Napoleon. The walls have landscapes by Salvator Rosa and four paintings by Titian, including Portrait of Pope Julius II.
- White Hall: This was once the palace's ballroom. It has white decorations and is often used for temporary art shows.
The Royal Apartments have 14 rooms. Their decorations were changed by the Savoy kings, but some rooms still have furniture and decorations from the Medici era.
The Green Room has a 17th-century cabinet and gilded bronze items. The Throne Room was decorated for King Victor Emmanuel II and has red walls and Chinese vases.
The Blue Room has furniture from the 1600s and 1700s. It also has portraits of Medici family members painted by Justus Sustermans.
Main Artworks in the Palatine Gallery
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Raphael
Madonna del Granduca. -
Raphael
Portrait of Agnolo Doni. -
Raphael
Woman with a Veil. -
Raphael
Madonna della Seggiola. -
Raphael
Vision of Ezekiel. -
Raphael
Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami. -
Raphael
La Donna Gravida. -
Titian
Christ the Redeemer. -
Titian
The Concert. -
Titian
La Bella. -
Titian
Portrait of Vincenzo Mosti. -
Titian
Portrait of Pope Julius II. -
Peter Paul Rubens
The Four Philosophers. -
Peter Paul Rubens
Madonna of the Basket. -
Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio. -
Filippo Lippi
Bartolini Tondo. -
Caravaggio
Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli. -
Giorgione
The Three Ages of Man. -
Verrocchio
St. Jerome. -
Paolo Veronese
Portrait of a Gentleman in a Fur. -
Fra Bartolomeo
Lamentation. -
Andrea del Sarto
Pietà with Saints.
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Other Galleries and Museums
Royal Apartments
These 14 rooms were once used by the Medici family and later by other rulers. They have been changed quite a bit over time, especially in the 1800s. They contain many portraits of the Medici family. Unlike the huge rooms of the Palatine Gallery, some of these rooms are smaller and more private. They still look grand but were more suitable for daily life. You can see four-poster beds and other furniture that would have been used for living. The Kings of Italy last used the Pitti Palace in the 1920s.
Gallery of Modern Art
This gallery started in 1748. It was meant to show artworks that won prizes in art school competitions. By the mid-1800s, there were so many modern art paintings that many were moved to another palace.
After the unification of Italy, all the modern artworks were brought together in one place. The collection kept growing, especially with the support of Victor Emmanuel II. In 1922, this gallery moved to the Pitti Palace. It was placed in rooms that the Italian Royal family had recently left. The gallery first opened to the public in 1928.
Today, this large collection has over 30 rooms. It includes works by artists from the Macchiaioli movement and other Italian art schools from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Macchiaioli artists are very important. They were a group of Tuscan painters who helped start the Impressionist movement. In Italy, "modern art" usually means art from before World War II. Art made after that is called "contemporary art."
Treasury of the Grand Dukes
This museum used to be called the Silver Museum. It holds a collection of very valuable silver, cameos (carved jewels), and items made from semi-precious stones. Many of these came from the collection of Lorenzo de' Medici. This includes his ancient vases, which had delicate silver decorations added in the 1400s. These rooms were once part of the private royal apartments. They are decorated with beautiful frescoes from the 1600s. The museum also has a great collection of German gold and silver items. These were bought by Grand Duke Ferdinand III after he returned from exile in 1815.
Porcelain Museum
This museum opened in 1973. It is located in the Casino del Cavaliere building in the Boboli Gardens. The porcelain comes from many famous European factories, like Sèvres porcelain and Meissen porcelain. Many items were gifts to the Florentine rulers from other European kings and queens. Other pieces were specially ordered by the Grand Ducal court. You can see several large dinner sets and a collection of small porcelain figures.
Costume Gallery
This gallery is in a part of the palace called the "Palazzina della Meridiana." It has a collection of theater costumes from the 1500s to today. It is also the only museum in Italy that tells the history of Italian fashion. This is one of the newer collections at the palace, started in 1983.
Besides theater costumes, the gallery shows clothes worn from the 1700s to the present day. Some exhibits are very special. These include the 16th-century funeral clothes of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, his wife Eleonora of Toledo, and their son Garzia. They all died from malaria. The gallery also shows a collection of costume jewelry from the mid-1900s.
Carriages Museum
This museum is on the ground floor. It displays carriages and other vehicles used by the Grand Ducal court, mainly in the late 1700s and 1800s. Some of the carriages are very decorative. They have gold details and painted landscapes on their sides. The carriages used for the most important events, like the "Carrozza d'Oro" (golden carriage), have gold crowns on top. These crowns showed the rank of the people inside. Other carriages on display were used by the King of the Two Sicilies and other important people from Florence.
The Pitti Palace Today
Today, the Pitti Palace is no longer a royal home. It is owned by the Italian government and is a museum. Since 2015, it has been part of the Gallerie degli Uffizi. It is responsible for over 250,000 cataloged artworks. Even though it's now a public building, the palace still feels like a grand private collection. This is partly thanks to the "Friends of the Palazzo Pitti." This group helps raise money and suggests ways to keep the palace and its collections well-maintained and beautifully displayed.
Images for kids
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A modern view of the Pitti Palace.
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The southern side of the Pitti Palace, facing the Boboli amphitheater and obelisk.
Pastiche
The Königsbau wing of the Munich Residenz in Germany, which was a royal palace, was designed to look like the Pitti Palace.
See also
In Spanish: Palacio Pitti para niños
