Detail View: Archivision Base to Module 9: Palazzo degli Uffizi

Preferred Title: 
Palazzo degli Uffizi
Alternate Title: 
Uffizi Gallery
Image View: 
Frontal view of entire Piazzetta, on axis with the Arno Loggia, from north, cropped detail (original photograph, ca. 1900)
Creator: 
Bernardo Buontalenti (Italian architect, ca. 1531-1608); Cosimo I de' Medici (Italian patron, 1519-1574); Giorgio Vasari II (Italian architect, 1511-1574)
Location: 
site: Florence, Tuscany, Italy
Date: 
1559- ca. 1585 (creation)
Cultural Context: 
Italian
Style Period: 
Mannerist (Renaissance-Baroque style)
Work Type 1: 
official residence
Work Type 2: 
art museum
Classification: 
architecture
Material: 
stone
Technique: 
construction (assembling)
Subjects: 
architectural exteriors; rulers and leaders; Art museums; Cosimo I, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, 1519-1574
Description: 
The Uffizi, a building to house the offices of 13 administrative authorities then scattered about Florence, was an expression of the political unity that Cosimo I had imposed on his state. The plans for the project, documented from 1559, were possibly based on a sketch by Cosimo. Vasari designed two long wings, stretching from the Piazza della Signoria to the river, where they terminate in a linking wing. Each authority was provided with a complex of rooms on the ground-floor, the mezzanine and the main floor, with direct access from the portico. The arrangement of the offices is reflected in the articulation of the facade, divided into units of three bays. On the ground-floor the entrance to each unit is marked by pairs of Doric columns, flanked by piers; on the main floor the central window of the unit is emphasized by a segmental pediment. The upper floor (loggia), which was not connected to the rooms below, was probably originally intended for the use of the Duke. It was given a new function in 1565, as p
Image Description: 
Original historic black and white photograph, Archivision archive, ca. 1900.
Collection: 
Archivision Base Collection
Identifier: 
1A1-VG-PU-CC3
Rights: 
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.