Galleria Palatina

The Palatine Gallery in Palazzo Pitti preserves the Medici and Habsburg-Lorraine picture collections in a sumptuous residential setting: paintings hang closely together above gilded stucco, with Pietro da Cortona’s frescoes overhead.

Why it matters

The gallery’s arrangement reflects the way a dynastic palace displayed art, rather than a modern chronological sequence. Between the late eighteenth century and 1834, the Habsburg-Lorraine family arranged about 500 masterpieces from the main Medici collections across the ceremonial rooms. That presentation survives largely intact, bringing together paintings, sculpture, Roman antiquities and richly furnished interiors. The collection includes eleven works by Raphael, sixteen by Andrea del Sarto, fifteen by Titian, ten by Rubens and three by Caravaggio.

What to notice

Pietro da Cortona began the Planet Rooms’ decorative programme for Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici in the 1640s. After he left Florence in 1647, his collaborator Ciro Ferri continued the work, completing the cycle in 1665. The ceiling frescoes connect classical deities with the education and virtues of an ideal prince. Throughout the gallery, paintings in carved frames hang densely alongside sculptures, vases and tables decorated with semi-precious stone inlay. Works include Raphael’s Woman with a Veil and Madonna of the Chair; Titian’s Penitent Magdalene and La Bella; Cristofano Allori’s Judith with the Head of Holofernes; and Artemisia Gentileschi’s Mary Magdalen. The gallery occupies the first floor alongside the Royal and Imperial Apartments, whose silks, stuccoes and furnishings form part of the ensemble.

Context and history

Luca Pitti began the palace in the mid-fifteenth century, possibly to a design associated with Brunelleschi. Cosimo I de’ Medici and Eleonora of Toledo acquired it in 1550 and made it the seat of grand-ducal power. The Habsburg-Lorraine held the palace from 1737; from 1865, it served as a residence for the Savoy kings of Italy. The gallery’s densely hung rooms preserve the character of a private dynastic collection within this succession of ruling families.