The wing of the piano nobile not occupied by the Galleria Palatina painting collection is taken up with the private apartments used first by the Medici and then by the Lorraine Grand Dukes that inherited their titles.
These apartments were reopened in 1993 after being restored to their late-19th-century appearance, the era when the kings of the House of Savoy, rulers of the Unified Italy, used the suites as their Florentine home.
Amid the general interior-decorator flamboyance are some thoroughly appropriate baroque paintings by the likes of Sustermans, Carlo Dolci, and Anthony van Dyck, plus works by Caravagio and Andrea del Sarto.
Most rooms are named after the prevalent coloring of each chamber's elaborate silk wall hangings and curtains. The over-the-top sumptuous fabrics, decorative arts furnishings, stuccoes, and frescoes reflect the neo-baroque and Victorian tastes of the Savoy kings—though the Sala Celeste (Blue Room) does retain the 17C chandelier and Medici portraits by Sustermans there were here in the Medici era.
In the excellently preserved Sala Verde (Green Room)—otherwise mostly filled with paintings of French Royalty from the Bourbon collection of Parma (brought here by the Saoyard Kings)—hang a small Allegory of Peace between Florence and Fiesole by Luca Giordano and Caravaggio's 1610 Portrait of a Knight of Malta (Fra Antonio Martelli) ★.
What had been Ferdinand de' Medici's "Audience Chamber"—and, later, the Lorraine Grand Dukes' "Chamberlain's Room"—was transformed by the Savoy Kings into a neo-Baroque Throne Room, compelte with gilded red silk walls and a raised dais for the royal seat, hemmed by a minature golden balustrade and surrounded by Japanese and Chinese porcelain vases.
The misnamed Sala dei Pappagalli (Parrot Room—the birds worked into the silks walks are actually eagles) has an elaborated gilded stucco ceiling and neoclassical furniture from the period of Napoléon I, but the paintings on the wall include a small Portrait of a Woman possibly by Andrea del Sarto and depicting his wife (though others attribute the work to del Sarto's student Pontormo), another Portrait of a Woman by Lucas Cranach, and a Portrait of Giulia Varano della Rovere, Duches of Urbino by the workshop of Titian.
The canary-colored Camera del Re (King's Bedroom) once occupired by Umberto I contains a Madonna and Child with the young St. John by a young Andrea del Sarto.
» On to the Museum of Modern Art
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Piazza Pitti (cross the Ponte Vecchio and follow Via Guicciardini; you can't miss it)
tel. +39-055-238-8614
www.polomuseale.firenze.it
Tickets: Select Italy
Galleria Palatina, Appartamenti Rrali, and Galleria d'Arte Moderna:
Tues–Sun 8:15am–6:50pm
Galleria del Costume, Museo degli Argenti, Boboli Gardens, and Museo delle Porcellane:*
Tues–Sun as follows:
Jun-Aug 8:15am–6:50pm (Boboli Gdns: to 7:30pm)
Apr-May, Sept-Oct 8:15am–6:30pm
[portions of Oct and Mar after/before switches daylight savings time: 8:15am–5:30pm]
Nov-Feb 8:15am–4:30pm
* Museo delle Porcellane closes 15 min. earlier
Museo delle Carrozze: Currently closed
(Pitti Palace is free the first Sunday of each month)
Tickets: Select Italy
Firenze Card: Yes
Bus: C3, D
Hop-on/hop-off: Pitti (A)
This article was written by Reid Bramblett and was last updated in April 2015.
All information was accurate at the time.
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