Uffizi Gallery: facts and curiosities about the most famous museum of Italy
Min. readingThe Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Vasari’s masterpiece located only 10 minutes from our hotel Il Guelfo Bianco, is today the most visited museum in Italy and in the world, thanks to its Renaissance artistic endowment. Giotto, Cimabue, Michelangelo; these are only few names that are always linked to the Uffizi name and that every year bring thousands and thousands of visitors from all over the world. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Leonardo’s Annunciation… Even those that are not really into art know that the Uffizi museum must be visited at least once in a lifetime!
What even the most experts don’t know though, is that the Uffizi Gallery has not always been today’s beauty and history chef-d’oeuvre from the Medici, lords of Florence. The horseshoe building in fact, dates back to the 15th century, when Cosimo of Tuscany decided to demolish the old Baldracca’s neighborhood in the heart of the city, that was famous for crime and prostitution (fyi: even today Baldracca in Italian is a word that designs something very old and in bad conditions). Doing this, he created space to erect the unique building for the 13 most important Florentine jurisdictions of the time.
With the end of the Medici’s dynasty, the last heiress Anna Maria Luisa De’ Medici, with the famous Family Pact, decided to donate all the family treasures to the State of Tuscany, in order to share with the world such beauties, while keeping them inside Florence’s borders. It is like this that the Uffizi became the first real modern museum of Europe.
“as ornament of the State, for Public utility and to attract the curiosity of Foreigners”
Since then, many stories have been told behind the Uffizi’s walls and portraits, inspiring the big international names of Literature and Art.
Ever heard of the Stendhal Syndrome? The writer itself in fact, while visiting the Uffizi Gallery back in the 1817, overwhelmed by such beauty and marvel, ended up overcome with emotion and sudden illness. Because of him, such condition took the name of Stendhal’s syndrome, describing a psychosomatic pathology in which, in front of particularly evocative artworks, it is possible to experience panic attacks, general illness, accelerate heartbeat, fainting feeling etc. From this episode took inspiration also Dario Argento (famous Italian film director), where the protagonist of his movie, faints in front of Brunelleschi’s painting, experiencing the same syndrome as Stendhal’s.
Talking about movies, recent is also the filming of Inferno, bestseller screen adaptation of Dan Brown’s book, where the renowned professor Langdon, is again involved with an artistic thriller. Right inside the Uffizi has been indeed filmed one of the main scenes of the movie, in which Robert Langdon and Sienna are escaping their enemies, running from Boboli through the famous Vasari Corridor (old Medici’s escape passage), linking Pitti’s Palace to the Uffizi.
If you are already imagining yourself imitating Langdon running from Boboli to the Uffizi, Alas! Today it is not anymore a real walking area open to visitors, but has only been opened for the filming of Inferno’s movie. Nevertheless, it is possible to go from the inside of the Uffizi Gallery to the top of the Vasari Corridor, on a private tour, so to have a unique view of Florence.
Worried about avoiding long queues and having your tickets to enter the Uffizi’s museum without issues? No problem! Booking direct your stay at Il Guelfo Bianco through our website, it will be in fact possible on request, to have your tickets all booked from our team! We will think of it all, leaving you only to worry about what to put inside your suitcase!
If you haven’t yet been in Florence and visited the Uffizi Gallery, or you are planning to come back, next time you are there ready to enter the museum, try thinking of how it was before and how beautiful it is nowadays. Think about how a place that once was considered a dangerous and dirty area is today one of the most important artistic heritages in the world.
At the end, as the beautiful lotus flower growing in muddy waters, also historical masterpieces like the Uffizi Gallery can appear in places where before there was no form of beauty at all. Here at our boutique hotel full of art installations, we know what it means!
You just need to learn how to look at the world with different eyes.
