Pitti Palace, Palatine Gallery
Florence, Italy


Purchased in 1550, the Palace was chosen by Cosimo I de’ Medici and his wife Eleanor of Toledo as the new Grand Ducal residence, and it soon became the new symbol of the Medici’s power over Tuscany. It also housed the Court of other two dynasties: the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (which succeeded the Medici from 1737) and the Kings of Italy from the House of Savoy, who inhabited it from 1865.
The palace still bears the name of its first owner, the Florentine banker Luca Pitti that in the mid-1400s started its construction at the foot of the Boboli hill beyond the Arno River.

Today the Palace is divided into five museums: the Treasury of the Grand Dukes and the Museum of Russian Icons (with the Palatine Chapel) on the ground floor, the Palatine Gallery and the Imperial and Royal Apartments on the first floor, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Museum of Costume and Fashion on the second floor.