The Grand Hotel Minerva Florence
Italy has created this virtual tour to enable
guests to view our best locations. Please note
that they will only appear on computers that have
the necessary "plugin" installed.
The Uffizi Gallery covers an area of about 8.000
sq.m.. and contains one of the most important
collections of art of all times, including classical
sculpture and paintings on canvas and wood by
13th to 18th century Italian and foreign schools.
The Gallery of the Uffizi was also the first
museum ever to be opened to the public: in fact
the Grand Duke granted permission to visit it
on request from the year 1591. Its four centuries
of history make the Uffizi Gallery the oldest
museum in the world.
Cosimo I de' Medici decided to build the Palace,
whose construction was started by Giorgio Vasari
in 1560 and later completed by Buontalenti, who
designed the famous Tribune, to house the administrative
offices (or "uffizi") of the Government
because Palazzo Vecchio, which also overlooks
Piazza della Signoria, had become too small to
hold them all.
However it was his son Francesco I who was responsible
for starting to turn the palace into a museum
in 1581, when he closed the second floor Gallery
with huge windows and arranged part of the grand-ducal
collection of classical statues, medals, jewellery,
weapons, paintings and scientific instruments
here.
 Problems:
If you have problems with the virtual tour, it
could be because you haven’t installed Java
Runtime Environment. To download this software
free of charge simply click on the link below.
Click
here if you are having problems opening
the reservation page.
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