5 Masterpieces at the Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560-1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari.

It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period).

The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.

Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) | Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1772-1777 | Royal Collection (UK)

Jacopo Zucchi | L'allegoria della Notte, 1588

"L'allegoria della Notte" di Jacopo Zucchi (1542-1596), è una delle nove tele dello splendido soffitto del Terrazzo delle Carte Geografiche, nel primo corridoio degli Uffizi a Firenze.

Fra le ombre della notte, al chiarore della luna, tutto può accadere.

Una dama alata, dalla carnagione eburnea, culla i suoi figli sopra una nube in un cielo stellato.

Uno di loro gioca con la falce del tempo.

Jacopo Zucchi | Allegoria della Notte, 1588 | Soffitto del Terrazzo delle Carte Geografiche, Gallerie degli Uffizi

Lucio Massari | Madonna of the Laundry, 1620

"Mary washed, Joseph laid... "

The subject of this painting really seems to illustrate the famous lullaby your grandparents or parents used to sing to you when you were a child.

You know, no one can escape household affairs, not even Joseph, Mary and Jesus!

The scene depicted by the Bolognese painter Lucio Massari (1568-1633) is in fact very unusual: every member of the Sacraiglia works with commitment and organization to clean and iron the laundry.

Lucio Massari Holy Family (Madonna of the Laundry), 1620 | Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze

Thérèse Schwartze | Self-portrait, 1888 | Uffizi Gallery

The artist presents herself by citing a well-known precedent: Sir Joshua Reynolds, who in his youthful self-portrait of 1749 portrays himself while making a screen with one hand over his eyes and holding the tools of his trade in the other.

After an initial apprenticeship with his father, Thérèse studied at the Rijksakademie, in Munich and in Paris.

Returning to Amsterdam she opened a very active studio, receiving important commissions and awards.

Titian | The Venus of Urbino, 1538 | Uffizi Gallery

Toward the beginning of his career Titian had brought to completion Giorgione's unfinished canvas of Venus asleep in a landscape; some twenty-five years later he adapted the central motif of the recumbent figure to a new setting and transformed its meaning by domesticating that pastoral deity. Giorgione's Venus - withdrawn in a private dream of love that we can share, to a degree, only by an effort of the imagination - has been brought indoors; fully awake now and aware of her audience, she displays her charms in a deliberately public proclamation of love.

Gerard van Honthorst | Adoration of the Christ Child, 1619-1620

The Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst (1590-1656) was called Gherardo delle Notti (literally Gerard of the nights) because of his peculiar compositions in nocturnal lighting influenced by Caravaggio that he met in Rome in the first decades of the 17th century.

During his stay in Italy, Honthorst met Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici, who bought some of his works in 1620, among which probably this Adoration of the Child.

The divine light spread from the newborn’s body softens each feature, in particular the facial ones of the Virgin.

Gerard van Honthorst | Adoration of the Christ Child, 1619-1620 | Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Rosso Fiorentino | Musician Angel, 1522

Playing putto / Musical Angel is a fragment of a lost altarpiece which probably depicted the Madonna and Child with Saints.

This little work belonging to the period of maturity of the artist.

In 1605 the picture was collocated in the Tribune beside the more precious masterworks Medici family had collected.

Recent studies revealed the panel to be a fragment of a larger painting including - such as other altarpieces by Rosso - the angel in the lower part of the scene.

Tribuna of the Uffizi | The first museum of the Modern Age

In the Eighties of the 16th century, the Grand Duke Francesco I and his friend and collaborator, the architect Bernardo Buontalenti, started the project of the Tribuna.

It is the most important room at the first floor of the Uffizi palace, which ground floor was - at that time - occupied by the Florentine magistrates.

The Tribuna was the first nucleus of the Uffizi Gallery: it is a space conceived and realized to display to the public artworks considered the most precious of the Medici collection.

Marble Roman copy after a Greek original

Artemisia Gentileschi | The Penitent Mary Magdalene, 1616

Mary Magdalen was a much-loved subject both by painters and the public because she represented the ideal model of the search of virtue and the renunciation of worldly pleasures.

Artemisia Gentileschi wished to recount the story of this difficult path in her portrayal of a young woman with wild hair wrapped in a magnificent yellow silk gown holding a mirror, the symbol of vanity and inscribed with the words Optimam partem elegit (“you have chosen the best part”, namely virtue) away from her.

The beam of intense light illuminates the figure from the right, a demonstration of the technique Artemisia would have learned by studying Caravaggio's works in Rome, and conveys the sense of drama that envelopes the subject.

Artemisia Gentileschi | The Penitent Mary Magdalene, 1616 (detail) | Pitti Palace

Lorenzo Bartolini | Venus (after Titian)

The Venus of Urbino was one of the inspirations for Édouard Manet's 1863 Olympia in which the figure of Venus is replaced with the model Victorine Meurent.

Reclining Venus, after Titian by Lorenzo Bartolini at the Uffizi Museum was perhaps commissioned in 1820 by Lord Robert Castlereagh, Marquis of Londonderry.

For the realization of the sculpture, Bartolini availed himself of the presence in Florence of his friend Ingres, for whom in 1821 he obtained permission of the Uffizi Gallery to realize a copy of Titian's Venus.

Sandro Botticelli | The Birth of Venus, 1485

"The Birth of Venus" is undoubtedly one of the world’s most famous and appreciated works of art. Painted by Sandro Botticelli between 1482-1485, it has become a landmark of XV century Italian painting, so rich in meaning and allegorical references to antiquity.

The theme comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a very important oeuvre of the Latin literature. Venus is portrayed naked on a shell on the seashore; on her left the winds blow gently caressing her hair with a shower of roses, on her right a handmaid (Ora) waits for the goddess to go closer to dress her shy body.

The meadow is sprinkled with violets, symbol of modesty but often used for love potions.

La Galleria degli Uffizi di Firenze

La Galleria degli Uffizi, una imponente ed armoniosa struttura del Cinquecento fiorentino, uno dei musei più conosciuti al mondo, è sito nel Piazzale degli Uffizi a Firenze.

Fù realizzata dall'architetto Giorgio Vasari su disposizione di Cosimo I, il quale volle riunire tutti gli uffici amministrativi della città in un solo grande edificio.

La costruzione del palazzo iniziò nel 1560 per terminare nel 1580, quando Giorgio Vasari era già morto.

L’opera fu portata a termine dagli architetti Alfonso Parigi e Bernardo Buontalenti, che mantennero il disegno originale.

Piazza della Signoria - Fontana del Neptune