Uffizi

The Uffizi Gallery grew out of a purely administrative building: in 1560 Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned architect Giorgio Vasari to construct a complex of offices (uffizi in Italian) to consolidate Florence's judicial and administrative functions near the Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari's design, completed after his death in 1581, created what architectural historians regard as the first regularized streetscape in Europe, a long narrow courtyard opening to the Arno framed by continuous cornices and matching facades. The upper floor was gradually converted by the Medici into a gallery for the family's art and antiquities, including the octagonal Tribuna commissioned by Francesco I to display the dynasty's most prized treasures. When the Medici line ended in 1737, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici bequeathed the entire collection to the Tuscan state under the Patto di Famiglia (Family Pact), stipulating that it never leave Florence, and the gallery formally opened to the public in 1765, becoming fully state-run in 1865. The Uffizi is now the anchor of the Gallerie degli Uffizi museum system and holds the world's finest concentration of Italian Renaissance painting, including the greatest collections of Botticelli and early Florentine masters anywhere. A 2006–2016 expansion project roughly doubled the exhibition space to around 13,000 square meters, and the museum continues to be one of Italy's most-visited cultural institutions.