PALATINA GALLERY ENTRANCE TICKET (2)

Description

Located on the south side of the Arno, only minutes from the Ponte Vecchio, the vast, mainly Renaissance Pitti Palace was the residence of the Medici. The powerful Florentine family had bought it from a rich banker named Luca Pitti in 1549 and transformed it into the main residence for Grand-Duchy of Tuscany.

The Medici added to the core building and transformed the Palazzo into a veritable treasure chest. Later, the palace was home to other rulers - the Lorraine family, and then finally the King of Italy when Florence was capital of Italy. Nowadays, the palace's collections and museums are fully open to the public. The palace's gardens, the Boboli, are one of the most beloved gardens in Florence, and offer vast green spaces, landscaped to perfection, as well as stunning views of Florence. Museum of the Grand Ducal Treasure The Museum of the Grand Ducal Treasure or Silver Museum occupies twenty-five rooms of the left wing of Palazzo Pitti, chosen in 1861 as the location for the display.

The core of the collection was originally preserved in Palazzo Medici in Via Larga (now Via Cavour), where Cosimo the Elder had started a rich collection of precious objects in the 15th century. His son Piero and his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent later added to this collection. Some of the most valuable objects are the vases that belonged to Lorenzo, which are considered extremely precious both historically and artistically. The present arrangement of the museum focuses both on different aspects of the grand ducal collection and on the beauty of the rooms chosen to display it in. A secret stairway leads to the first floor, the heart of the treasure of the Museum: the Rooms of the Cameos and of the Jewels which belonged to Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici (early 18th century), who purchased precious jewels in all of Europe.

The two following rooms contain the famous Treasure of Salzburg, which was brought to Florence by Ferdinand III of Lorraine, after his return from exile following the brief Napoleonic period. The Silver Museum also includes the Oriental Room, and Chinese and Japanese chinaware. On the ground floor you'll also find the precious collection of ambers and the Room of the Crystals and Semi-precious stones. Noteworthy is the great room frescoed by Giovanni da San Giovanni (1592-1636) and his assistants on the occasion of the marriage of Ferdinando II de' Medici and Vittoria della Rovere (1634), where sumptuous mythological allegories and references highlight the many aspects of the cultural and political life of the Medici under Lorenzo the Magnificent.