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Albergo Firenze. Surroundings. Uffizi Palace & Gallery

Comissioned by Cosimo I, the Uffizi Palace is one of the most loved monuments of Florence. An architectural work of great importance, that shelters masterpieces of inestimable value.
It was designed by Giorgio Vasari around the middle of the 16th century and in order to realize the project, Vasari needed to demolish some of the buildings surrounding the area. Among these was the church of San Pier Scheraggio, in via della Ninna. The intention of Cosimo I was to build a palace that could host the thirteen administrative and judicial Magistrature or Uffizi, from which the palace will get its name.
When Vasari died, the construction of the Uffizi was handed over to Buontalenti and to Alfonso Parigi. Buontalenti projected the Teatro Mediceo according to the will of Francesco I, the son of Cosimo I, in 1586. When Florence was the capital of Italy the theatre was the seat of the Senate. The building has the unusual and singular horseshoe shape, also called U shape, which opens towards the Arno River. The two bodies of the building are parallel and conjoined by a connecting corridor that has six big arched windows that open over the courtyard of the palace and over the Arno River. The two floors of the building stand over a portico that runs along the whole length of the palace and is sustained by pillars. In the niches of the portico are the statues of the Florentines who distinguished themselves from the Middle Ages until the 19th century.
It was Francesco I de' Medici who created an art Gallery on the second floor of the Palazzo degli Uffizi to delight himself, during his walks, with the collection of paintings, sculptures and arrases belonging to the Medici family. Thanks to Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici the Gallery became a "public and inalienable good": the Duchess, in fact, handed it over to the Lorena family providing that it would remain open to the public.
Today, the Uffizi Palace hosts one of the most admired and visited museums in the world noted for the quality of its artworks and the history that accompanies them from the 13th century to the 18th century.
In 1993 the Palace was involved in the bombing attack at the Accademia dei Gergofili undergoing damages and loses of inestimable value; another act of vandalism against a patrimony of the world that managed to resist and to win returning, after a long restoration work, to its original splendour.