Moments from Uffizi Gallery

Giorgio Vasari, the painter and architect better remembered today as the author of Lives of the Artists, the book that essentially invented art history as a genre, built the Uffizi in the 1560s as government office space for Cosimo I de' Medici, "uffizi" simply meaning offices in Italian. The Medici family gradually began displaying their private art collection in the top-floor corridor, and by the late sixteenth century the building had transformed from bureaucratic workspace into one of the first purpose-built art galleries in the Western world, home today to Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, two of the most reproduced paintings in art history, alongside major works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Titian.

The Vasari Corridor, an elevated covered passageway Vasari built connecting the Uffizi across the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti, letting the Medici move between their offices and residence without mixing with the public street below, reopened to visitors in late 2024 after eight years closed, and it's worth booking as a separate add-on ticket if it's currently available, offering a genuinely unusual elevated view over the Arno and the city. Book Uffizi tickets well in advance regardless, it remains one of the most in-demand museum tickets in Italy, and walk-up lines in high season can mean waits of several hours without a pre-booked time slot.