Galleria degli Uffizi
Medieval—When Art Was as Flat as the World (1200-1400)
The Renaissance Blossoms (1450-1500)
Map: Classical Sculpture & Northern Renaissance
First Floor—More Art on the Way to the Exit
Map: Uffizi Gallery—First Floor
In the Renaissance, Florentine artists rediscovered the beauty of the natural world. Medieval art had been symbolic, telling Bible stories. Realism didn’t matter. But Renaissance people saw the beauty of God in nature and the human body. They used math and science to capture the natural world on canvas as realistically as possible.
The Uffizi Gallery (oo-FEED-zee) has the greatest overall collection anywhere of Italian painting. We’ll trace the rise of realism and savor the optimistic spirit that marked the Renaissance.
My eyes love things that are fair,
and my soul for salvation cries.
But neither will to Heaven rise
unless the sight of Beauty lifts them there.
—Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, poet
(See “Heart of Florence” map, here.)
Cost: €6.50, €11 with mandatory special exhibits, additional €4 fee for recommended reservation (if you’ve reserved tickets by phone, bring cash to pick them up), covered by Firenze Card.
Hours: Tue-Sun 8:15-18:35, closed Mon, last entry 30 minutes before closing.
Renovation: The Uffizi is undergoing a massive, years-long renovation that may affect your visit. Some of the items described in this chapter may be displayed in different rooms, on loan to other museums, or out for restoration—pick up a floor plan as you enter, and if you need help finding a particular piece of art, ask the guards in each room.
Avoiding Lines: To skip the notoriously long ticket-buying lines, either get a Firenze Card or reserve ahead (for details on both, see here and here). During summer and on weekends, the Uffizi can be booked up a month or more in advance. Without a Firenze Card or reservation, you can usually enter without major lines from November through March after 16:00. But in peak season (April-Oct) and on weekends, the wait can be hours, and it can be crowded even late in the day. The busiest days are Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Getting There: It’s on the Arno River between the Palazzo Vecchio and Ponte Vecchio, a 15-minute walk from the train station.
Getting In: There are several entrances (see map on next page). Which one you use depends on whether you have a Firenze Card, a reservation, or neither.
Firenze Card holders enter at door #1 (labeled Reservation Entrance), close to the Palazzo Vecchio. Read the signs carefully, as there are two lines at this entrance; get in the line for individuals, not groups.
People buying a ticket on the spot line up with everyone else at door #2. (The wait can be hours long.)
To buy a Firenze Card, or to see if there are any same-day reservations available (€4 extra, but could save you time in the ticket line), enter door #2 to the left of the ticket-buying line (marked Booking Service and Today).
If you’ve already made a reservation and need to pick up your ticket, go to door #3 (labeled Reservation Ticket Office, across the courtyard from doors #1 and #2). Tickets are available for pick-up 10 minutes before your appointed time. If you booked online and have already prepaid, you’ll just exchange your voucher for a ticket. If you (or your hotelier) booked by phone, give them your confirmation number and pay for the ticket (cash only). Once you have your ticket, walk briskly past the 200-yard-long ticket-buying line—pondering the IQ of this gang—to door #1. Show your ticket and walk in.
Information: English information is posted in many rooms. You can buy Uffizi guidebooks (a nice souvenir) at the ground-floor bookstore (€10 small book, €16 bigger version). Museum info tel. 055-238-8651, reservation tel. 055-294-883, www.uffizi.firenze.it.
Audioguides: A 1.5-hour audioguide costs €6 (€10/2 people; must leave ID). You can also download this chapter as a free Rick Steves audio tour (see here).
Length of This Tour: Allow two hours. With less time, see the Florentine Renaissance rooms (Botticelli and Leonardo) and the High Renaissance section (Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian).
Cloakroom: Baggage check is available in the entrance lobby. No bottled liquids are allowed inside the museum.
Services: A WC, post office, and book/gift shop are in the entrance/exit hall on the ground floor. Once in the gallery, there are no WCs until the end of our tour, downstairs from the café.
Photography: No photos are allowed.
Cuisine Art: The simple café at the end of the gallery has an outdoor terrace with stunning views of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo’s dome. They serve pricey sandwiches, salads, desserts, and fruit cups, but a €5 cappuccino outside, with that view, is one of Europe’s great treats.
Plenty of handy eateries are nearby and described in the Eating in Florence chapter. (See here.)
Starring: Botticelli, Venus, Raphael, Giotto, Titian, Leonardo, and Michelangelo.
(See “Uffizi Gallery Overview” map, here.)
• Walk up the four long flights of the monumental staircase to the top floor (those with limited mobility can take the elevator). Your brain should be fully aerated from the hike up. Past the ticket taker, look out the window.
The Uffizi is U-shaped, running around the courtyard. This left wing contains Florentine paintings from medieval to Renaissance times. The right wing (which you can see across the courtyard) has art from the Roman and Venetian High Renaissance, works from the Baroque period that followed, and a café terrace facing the Duomo. A short hallway with sculpture connects the two wings. We’ll concentrate on the Uffizi’s forte, the Florentine section, then get a taste of the art it inspired.
• Head up the long hallway, enter the first door on the left, and face Giotto’s giant Madonna and Child (straight ahead).
(See “Medieval Art” map, here.)
Mary and Baby Jesus sit on a throne in a golden never-never land symbolizing heaven. It’s as if medieval Christians couldn’t imagine holy people inhabiting our dreary material world. It took Renaissance painters to bring Mary down to earth and give her human realism. For the Florentines, “realism” meant “three-dimensional.” In this room, pre-Renaissance paintings show the slow process of learning to paint a 3-D world on a 2-D surface.
Before concentrating on the Giotto, look at some others in the room. The crucifixion (on your right as you face the Giotto; may be in restoration) was medieval 3-D: paint a crude two-dimensional work, then physically tilt the head forward. Nice try.
The three similar-looking Madonna-and-Bambinos in this room—all painted within a few decades of each other in about the year 1300—show baby steps in the march to realism. Duccio’s piece (on the left as you face Giotto) is the most medieval and two-dimensional. There’s no background. The angels are just stacked one on top of the other, floating in the golden atmosphere. Mary’s throne is crudely drawn—the left side is at a three-quarter angle while the right is practically straight on. Mary herself is a wispy cardboard-cutout figure seemingly floating just above the throne.
On the opposite wall, the work of Cimabue—mixing the iconic Byzantine style with budding Italian realism—is an improvement. The large throne creates an illusion of depth. Mary’s foot actually sticks out over the lip of the throne. Still, the angels are stacked totem-pole-style, serving as heavenly bookends.
Giotto (JOT-oh) employs realism to make his theological points. He creates a space and fills it. Like a set designer, he builds a three-dimensional “stage”—the canopied throne—then peoples it with real beings. The throne has angels in front, prophets behind, and a canopy over the top, clearly defining its three dimensions. The steps up to the throne lead from our space to Mary’s, making the scene an extension of our world. But the real triumph here is Mary herself—big and monumental, like a Roman statue. Beneath her robe, she has a real live body, with knees and breasts that stick out at us. This three-dimensionality was revolutionary in its day, a taste of the Renaissance a century before it began.
Giotto was one of the first “famous” artists. In the Middle Ages, artists were mostly unglamorous craftsmen, like carpenters or cable-TV repairmen. They cranked out generic art and could have signed their work with a bar code. But Giotto was recognized as a genius, a unique individual. He died in a plague that devastated Florence. If there had been no plague, would the Renaissance have started 100 years earlier?
• Enter Room 3, to the left of Giotto.
Simone Martini boils things down to the basic figures needed to get the message across: (1) The angel appears to sternly tell (2) Mary that she’ll be the mother of Jesus. In the center is (3) a vase of lilies, a symbol of purity. Above is (4) the Holy Spirit as a dove about to descend on her. If the symbols aren’t enough to get the message across, Simone Martini has spelled it right out for us in Latin: “Ave Gratia Plena...” or, “Hail, favored one, the Lord is with you.” Mary doesn’t exactly look pleased as punch.
This is not a three-dimensional work. The point was not to re-create reality but to teach religion, especially to the illiterate masses. This isn’t a beautiful Mary or even a real Mary. She’s a generic woman without distinctive features. We know she’s pure—not from her face, but only because of the halo and symbolic flowers. Before the Renaissance, artists didn’t care about the beauty of individual people.
Simone Martini’s Annunciation has medieval features you’ll see in many of the paintings in the next few rooms: (1) religious subject, (2) gold background, (3) two-dimensionality, and (4) meticulous detail.
• Pass through Room 4, full of golden altarpieces, stopping at the far end of Room 5.
Look at the incredible detail of the Three Kings’ costumes, the fine horses, and the cow in the cave. The canvas is filled from top to bottom with realistic details—but it’s far from realistic. While the Magi worship Jesus in the foreground, their return trip home dangles over their heads in the “background.”
This is a textbook example of the International Gothic style popular with Europe’s aristocrats in the early 1400s: well-dressed, elegant people in a colorful, design-oriented setting. The religious subject is just an excuse to paint secular luxuries such as jewelry and clothes made of silk brocade. And the scene’s background and foreground are compressed together to create an overall design that’s pleasing to the eye.
Such exquisite detail work raises the question: Was Renaissance three-dimensionality truly an improvement over Gothic, or simply a different style?
• Exit to your right and hang a U-turn left into Room 7.
(See “Early Renaissance” map, here.)
(Consider yourself lucky if this painting, long under restoration, has returned for your visit.) In the 1400s, painters worked out the problems of painting realistically, using mathematics to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. This colorful battle scene is not so much a piece of art as an exercise in perspective. Paolo Uccello (oo-CHEL-loh) has challenged himself with every possible problem.
The broken lances at left set up a 3-D “grid” in which this crowded scene is placed. The fallen horses and soldiers are experiments in “foreshortening”—diminishing the things that are farther away from us (which appear smaller) to create the illusion of distance. Some of the figures are definitely A-plus material, like the fallen gray horse in the center and the white horse at the far right walking away. But some are more like B-minus work—the kicking red horse’s legs look like ham hocks at this angle, and the fallen soldier at the far right would be child-size if he stood up.
And then there’s the D-minus “Are you on drugs?” work. The converging hedges in the background create a nice illusion of a distant hillside maybe 250 feet away. So what are those soldiers the size of the foreground figures doing there? And jumping the hedge, is that rabbit 40 feet tall?
Paolo Uccello almost literally went crazy trying to master the three dimensions (thank God he was born before Einstein discovered one more). Uccello got so wrapped up in it he kind of lost...perspective.
• Enter Room 8. In the center of the room stands a double portrait.
In medieval times, only saints and angels were worthy of being painted. In the humanistic Renaissance, however, even nonreligious folk like this husband and wife had their features preserved for posterity. Usually the man would have appeared on the left, with his wife at the right. But Federico’s right side was definitely not his best—he lost his right eye and part of his nose in a tournament. Renaissance artists discovered the beauty in ordinary people and painted them, literally, warts and all.
Compare this Mary with the generic female in Simone Martini’s Annunciation. We don’t need the wispy halo over her head to tell us she’s holy—she radiates sweetness and light from her divine face. Heavenly beauty is expressed by a physically beautiful woman.
Fra (Brother) Lippi, an orphan raised as a monk, lived a less-than-monkish life. He lived with a nun who bore him two children. He spent his entire life searching for the perfect Virgin. Through his studio passed Florence’s prettiest girls, many of whom decorate the walls here in this room.
Lippi painted idealized beauty, but his models were real flesh-and-blood human beings. You could look through all the thousands of paintings from the Middle Ages and not find anything so human as the mischievous face of one of Lippi’s little angel boys.
• Enter Room 9, with two small works by Pollaiolo in the glass case between the windows.
Hercules gets a workout in two small panels showing the human form at odd angles. The poses are the wildest imaginable, to show how each muscle twists and tightens. While Uccello worked on perspective, Pollaiolo studied anatomy. In medieval times, dissection of corpses was a sin and a crime (the two were the same then). Dissecting was a desecration of the human body, the temple of God. But Pollaiolo was willing to sell his soul to the devil for artistic knowledge. He dissected.
There’s something funny about this room that I can’t put my finger on...I’ve got it—no Madonnas. Not one. (No, that’s not a Madonna; she’s a Virtue.)
We’ve seen how Early Renaissance artists worked to conquer reality. Now let’s see the fruits of their work, the flowering of Florence’s Renaissance.
• Enter the large Botticelli room and take a seat.
(See “The Renaissance Blossoms” map, here.)
Florence in 1450 was in a Firenz-y of activity. There was a can-do spirit of optimism in the air, led by prosperous merchants and bankers and a strong middle class. The government was reasonably democratic, and Florentines saw themselves as citizens of a strong republic—like ancient Rome. Their civic pride showed in the public monuments and artworks they built. Man was leaving the protection of the church to stand on his own two feet.
Lorenzo de’ Medici, head of the powerful Medici family, epitomized this new humanistic spirit. Strong, decisive, handsome, poetic, athletic, sensitive, charismatic, intelligent, brave, clean, and reverent, Lorenzo was a true Renaissance man, deserving of the nickname he went by—the Magnificent. He gathered Florence’s best and brightest around him for evening wine and discussions of great ideas. One of this circle was the painter Botticelli (bot-i-CHEL-ee).
It’s springtime in a citrus grove. The winds of spring blow in (Mr. Blue, at right), causing the woman on the right to sprout flowers from her lips as she morphs into Flora, or Spring—who walks by, spreading flowers from her dress. At the left are Mercury and the Three Graces, dancing a delicate maypole dance. The Graces may be symbolic of the three forms of love—love of beauty, love of people, and sexual love, suggested by the raised intertwined fingers. (They forgot love of peanut butter on toast.) In the center stands Venus, the Greek goddess of love. Above her flies a blindfolded Cupid, happily shooting his arrows of love without worrying about whom they’ll hit.
Here is the Renaissance in its first bloom, its “springtime” of innocence. Madonna is out, Venus is in. Adam and Eve hiding their nakedness are out, glorious flesh is in. This is a return to the pre-Christian pagan world of classical Greece, where things of the flesh are not sinful. But this is certainly no orgy—just fresh-faced innocence and playfulness.
Botticelli emphasizes pristine beauty over gritty realism. The lines of the bodies, especially of the Graces in their see-through nighties, have pleasing, S-like curves. The faces are idealized but have real human features. There’s a look of thoughtfulness and even melancholy in the faces—as though everyone knows that the innocence of spring will not last forever.
• Look at the next painting to the right.
Here’s the rat pack of confident young Florentines who reveled in the optimistic pagan spirit—even in a religious scene. Botticelli included himself among the adorers, at the far right, looking vain in the yellow robe. Lorenzo is the Magnificent-looking guy at the far left.
According to myth, Venus was born from the foam of a wave. Still only half awake, this fragile, newborn beauty floats ashore on a clam shell, blown by the winds, where her maid waits to dress her. The pose is the same S-curve of classical statues (as we’ll soon see). Botticelli’s pastel colors make the world itself seem fresh and newly born.
This is the purest expression of Renaissance beauty. Venus’ naked body is not sensual, but innocent. Botticelli thought that physical beauty was a way of appreciating God. Remember Michelangelo’s poem: Souls will never ascend to heaven “...unless the sight of Beauty lifts them there.”
Botticelli finds God in the details—Venus’ windblown hair, her translucent skin, the maid’s braided hair, the slight ripple of the wind god’s abs, and the flowers tumbling in the slowest of slow motions, suspended like musical notes, caught at the peak of their brief life.
Mr. and Mrs. Wind intertwine—notice her hands clasped around his body. Their hair, wings, and robes mingle like the wind. But what happened to those splayed toes?
• “Venus on the Half-Shell” (as many tourists call this) is one of the masterpieces of Western art. Take some time with it. Then find the small canvas on the wall to the right, near the Allegory of Spring.
The spring of Florence’s Renaissance had to end. Lorenzo died young. The economy faltered. Into town rode the monk Savonarola, preaching medieval hellfire and damnation for those who embraced the “pagan” Renaissance spirit. “Down, down with all gold and decoration,” he roared. “Down where the body is food for the worms.” He presided over huge bonfires, where the people threw in their fine clothes, jewelry, pagan books...and paintings.
Slander spells the end of the Florentine Renaissance. The architectural setting is classic Brunelleschi, but look what’s taking place beneath those stately arches. These aren’t proud Renaissance men and women but a ragtag, medieval-looking bunch, a Court of Thieves in an abandoned hall of justice. The accusations fly, and everyone is condemned. The naked man pleads for mercy, but the hooded black figure, a symbol of his execution, turns away. The figure of Truth (naked Truth)—straight out of The Birth of Venus—looks up to heaven as if to ask, “What has happened to us?” The classical statues in their niches look on in disbelief.
Botticelli listened to Savonarola. He burned some of his own paintings and changed his tune. The last works of his life were darker, more somber, and pessimistic about humanity.
The 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine said, “When they start by burning books, they’ll end by burning people.” After four short years of power, Savonarola was burned in 1498 on his own bonfire in Piazza della Signoria, but by then the city was in shambles. The first flowering of the Renaissance was over.
• Enter the next room.
A scientist, architect, engineer, musician, and painter, Leonardo was a true Renaissance Man. He worked at his own pace rather than to please an employer, so he often left works unfinished. The two paintings in this room aren’t his best, but even a lesser Leonardo is enough to put a museum on the map, and they’re definitely worth a look.
In the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel has walked up to Mary, and now kneels on one knee like an ambassador, saluting her. See how relaxed his other hand is, draped over his knee. Mary, who’s been reading, looks up with a gesture of surprise and curiosity.
Leonardo constructs a beautifully landscaped “stage” and puts his characters in it. Look at the bricks on the right wall. If you extended lines from them, the lines would all converge at the center of the painting, the distant blue mountain. Same with the edge of the sarcophagus and the railing. This subtle touch creates a subconscious feeling of balance, order, and spaciousness in the viewer.
Think back to Simone Martini’s Annunciation to realize how much more natural, relaxed, and realistic Leonardo’s version is. He’s taken a miraculous event—an angel appearing out of the blue—and presented it in a very human way.
(This piece may be under restoration during your visit.) Leonardo’s human insight is even more apparent here, in this unfinished work. The poor kings are amazed at the Christ child—even afraid of him. They scurry around like chimps around a fire. This work is as agitated as the Annunciation is calm, giving us an idea of Leonardo’s range. Leonardo was pioneering a new era of painting, showing not just the outer features but the inner personality.
The next painting to the right, Baptism of Christ, is by Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo’s teacher. Leonardo painted the angel on the far left when he was only a teenager. Legend has it that when Verrocchio saw that some kid had painted an angel better than he ever would...he hung up his brush for good.
Florence saw the first blossoming of the Renaissance. But when the cultural climate turned chilly, artists flew south to warmer climes. The Renaissance shifted to Rome.
• Exit into the main hallway. Breathe. Sit. Admire the ceiling. Look out the window. See you in five.
Back already? Now continue down the hallway. On your left is a doorway to the recently renovated Tribuna (a.k.a. Room 18). Gazing inside, you’ll see the famous Venus de’ Medici statue.
(See “Classical Sculpture & Northern Renaissance” map, here.)
If the Renaissance was the foundation of the modern world, the foundation of the Renaissance was classical sculpture. Sculptors, painters, and poets alike turned for inspiration to these ancient Greek and Roman works as the epitome of balance, 3-D perspective, human anatomy, and beauty.
Is this pose familiar? Botticelli’s Birth of Venus has the same position of the arms, the same S-curved body, and the same lifting of the right leg. A copy of this statue stood in Lorenzo the Magnificent’s garden, where Botticelli used to hang out. This one is a Roman copy of the lost original by the great Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Balanced, harmonious, and serene, the statue embodies the attributes of Greece’s “Golden Age,” when balance was admired in every aspect of life.
Perhaps more than any other work of art, this statue has been the epitome of both ideal beauty and sexuality. In the 18th and 19th centuries, sex was “dirty,” so the sex drive of cultured aristocrats was channeled into a love of pure beauty. Wealthy sons and daughters of Europe’s aristocrats made the pilgrimage to the Uffizi to complete their classical education...where they swooned in ecstasy before the cold beauty of this goddess of love.
Louis XIV had a bronze copy made. Napoleon stole her away to Paris for himself. And in Philadelphia in the 1800s, a copy had to be kept under lock and key to prevent the innocent from catching the Venere-al disease. At first, it may be difficult for us to appreciate such passionate love of art, but if any generation knows the power of sex to sell something—be it art or underarm deodorant—it’s ours.
Venus de’ Medici’s male counterpart is on the right, facing Venus. Apollino (a.k.a. “Venus with a Penis”) is another Greco-Roman interpretation of the master of smooth, cool lines: Praxiteles.
The other works are later Greek (Hellenistic), when quiet balance was replaced by violent motion and emotion. The Wrestlers, to the left of Venus, is a study in anatomy and twisted limbs—like Pollaiolo’s paintings a thousand years later.
The drama of The Knife Grinder to the right of Venus stems from the off-stage action—he’s sharpening the knife to flay a man alive.
This fine room was a showroom, or a “cabinet of wonders,” back when this building still functioned as the Medici offices. Filled with family portraits, it’s a holistic statement that symbolically links the Medici family with the four basic elements: air (weathervane in the lantern), water (inlaid mother of pearl in the dome), fire (red wall), and earth (inlaid stone floor).
• Enter the next room past the Tribuna, then turn right into Room 20.
(See “Classical Sculpture & Northern Renaissance” map, here.)
The warm spirit of the Renaissance blew north into Germany. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), the famous German painter and engraver, traveled to Venice, where he fell in love with all things Italian. Returning home, he painted the First Couple in the Italian style—full-bodied, muscular (check out Adam’s abs and Eve’s knees), “carved” with strong shading, fresh-faced, and innocent in their earthly Paradise.
This copy of Dürer’s original (it’s in the Prado) by Hans Baldung Grien was a training exercise. Like many of Europe’s artists—including Michelangelo and Raphael—Baldung Grien learned technique by studying Dürer’s meticulous engravings, spread by the newly invented printing press.
Eve sashays forward, with heavy-lidded eyes, to offer the forbidden fruit. Adam stretches to display himself and his foliage to Eve. The two panels are linked by smoldering eye contact, as Man and Woman awaken to their own nakedness. The Garden of Eden is about to be rocked by new ideas that are both liberating and troubling.
Though the German Lucas Cranach occasionally dabbled in the “Italian style,” he chose to portray his Adam and Eve in the now-retro look of International Gothic.
They are slimmer than Dürer’s, as well as smoother, more S-shaped, elegant, graceful, shapely, and erotic, with the dainty pinkies of the refined aristocrats who were signing Cranach’s paycheck.
Though life-size, Adam and Eve are not lifelike, not monumental, not full-bodied or muscular, and are not placed in a real-world landscape with distant perspectives. Even so, Cranach was very much a man of the Renaissance, a friend of Martin Luther, and a champion of humanism.
• Find a small, two-panel portrait featuring Martin Luther with his wife (or possibly a panel featuring Luther’s colleague, Melanchthon; the museum rotates these two).
Martin Luther—German monk, fiery orator, and religious whistle-blower—sparked a century of European wars by speaking out against the Catholic Church.
Luther (1483-1546) lived a turbulent life. In early adulthood, the newly ordained priest suffered a severe personal crisis of faith, before finally emerging “born again.” In 1517, he openly protested against Church corruption and was excommunicated. Defying both the pope and the emperor, he lived on the run as an outlaw, watching as his ideas sparked peasant riots. He still found time to translate the New Testament from Latin to modern German, write hymns such as “A Mighty Fortress,” and spar with the humanist Erasmus and fellow-Reformer Zwingli.
In Cranach’s portrait, Martin Luther (at age 46) is easing out of the fast lane. Recently married to an ex-nun, he has traded his monk’s habit for street clothes, bought a house, had several kids...and has clearly been enjoying his wife’s home cooking and home-brewed beer.
When “Katie” (well, Käthe) decided to leave her convent, the famous Martin Luther agreed to help find her a husband. She rejected his nominees, saying she’d marry no one...except Luther himself. In 1525, the 42-year-old ex-priest married the 26-year-old ex-nun “to please my father and annoy the pope.” Martin turned his checkbook over to “my lord Katie,” who also ran the family farm, raised their 6 children and 11 adopted orphans, and hosted Martin’s circle of friends (including Cranach) at loud, chatty dinner parties.
• Pass through the next couple of rooms, exiting to a great view of the Arno and Ponte Vecchio. Stroll through the...
A hundred years ago, no one even looked at Botticelli—they came to the Uffizi to see the sculpture collection. And today, these 2,000-year-old Roman copies of 2,500-year-old Greek originals are hardly noticed...but they should be. Only a few are displayed here now.
The most impressive is the male nude, Doriforo (“spear carrier”), a Roman copy of the Greek original by Polykleitos.
The purple statue in the center of the hall—headless and limbless—is a female wolf (lupa, c. A.D. 120) done in porphyry stone. This was the animal that raised Rome’s legendary founders and became the city’s symbol. Renaissance Florentines marveled at the ancient Romans’ ability to create such lifelike, three-dimensional works. They learned to reproduce them in stone...and then learned to paint them on a two-dimensional surface.
• Gaze out the windows from the hall for a...
Enjoy Florence’s best view of the Arno and Ponte Vecchio. You can also see the red-tiled roof of the Vasari Corridor, the “secret” passage connecting the Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio, and Pitti Palace on the other side of the river—a half-mile in all. This was a private walkway, wallpapered in great art, for the Medici family’s commute from home to work.
As you appreciate the view (best at sunset), remember that it’s this sort of pleasure that Renaissance painters wanted you to get from their paintings. For them, a canvas was a window you looked through to see the wide world. Their paintings re-create natural perspective: Distant objects (such as bridges) are smaller, dimmer, and higher up the “canvas,” while closer objects are bigger, clearer, and lower.
We’re headed down the home stretch now. If your little U-feetsies are killing you, and it feels like torture, remind yourself that it’s a pleasant torture and smile...like the statue next to you.
• In the far hallway, turn left into the first room (#25) to find the works by Titian and Parmigianino.
(See “High Renaissance” map, here.)
Compare this Venus with Botticelli’s newly hatched Venus, and you get a good idea of the difference between the Florentine and Venetian Renaissance. Botticelli’s was pure, innocent, and otherworldly. Titian’s should have a staple in her belly button. This isn’t a Venus, it’s a centerfold—with no purpose but to please the eye and other organs. While Botticelli’s allegorical Venus is a message, this is a massage. The bed is used.
Titian and his fellow Venetians took the pagan spirit pioneered in Florence and carried it to its logical hedonistic conclusion. Using bright, rich colors, they captured the luxurious life of happy-go-lucky Venice.
While other artists may have balanced their compositions with a figure on the left and one on the right, Titian balances his painting in a different way—with color. The canvas is split down the middle by the curtain. The left half is dark, the right half is lighter. The two halves are connected by a diagonal slash of luminous gold—the nude woman. The girl in the background is trying to find her some clothes.
By the way, visitors from centuries past also panted in front of this Venus. The Romantic poet Byron called it “the Venus.” With her sensual skin, hey-sailor look, and suggestively placed hand, she must have left them blithering idiots.
• Find a n-n-n-nearby painting...
Once Renaissance artists had mastered reality, where could they go next?
Mannerists such as Parmigianino tried, by going beyond realism, exaggerating it for effect. Using brighter colors and twisting poses, they created scenes more elegant and more exciting than real life.
By stretching the neck of his Madonna, Parmigianino (like the cheese) gives her an unnatural, swanlike beauty. She has the same pose and position of hands as Botticelli’s Venus and the Venus de’ Medici. Her body forms an arcing S-curve—down her neck as far as her elbow, then back the other way along Jesus’ body to her knee, then down to her foot. Baby Jesus seems to be blissfully gliding down this slippery slide of sheer beauty.
• Return to the hallway and continue down a few steps to Room 35, the Michelangelo Room.
This is the only completed easel painting by the greatest sculptor in history. Florentine painters were sculptors with brushes; this shows it. Instead of a painting, it’s more like three clusters of statues with some clothes painted on.
The main subject is the holy family—Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus—and in the background are two groups of nudes looking like classical statues. The background represents the old pagan world, while Jesus in the foreground is the new age of Christianity. The figure of young John the Baptist at right is the link between the two.
This is a “peasant” Mary, with a plain face and sunburned arms. Michelangelo shows her from a very unflattering angle—we’re looking up her nostrils. But Michelangelo himself was an ugly man, and he was among the first artists to recognize the beauty in everyday people.
Michelangelo was a Florentine—in fact, he was like an adopted son of the Medici, who recognized his talent—but much of his greatest work was done in Rome as part of the pope’s face-lift of the city. We can see here some of the techniques he used on the Sistine Chapel ceiling that revolutionized painting—monumental figures; dramatic angles (looking up Mary’s nose); accentuated, rippling muscles; and bright, clashing colors (all the more apparent since both this work and the Sistine Chapel ceiling have recently been cleaned). These elements added a dramatic tension that was lacking in the graceful work of Leonardo and Botticelli.
Michelangelo painted this for his friend Agnolo Doni for 70 ducats. (Michelangelo designed, but didn’t carve, the elaborate frame.) When the painting was delivered, Doni tried to talk Michelangelo down to 40. Proud Michelangelo took the painting away and would not sell it until the man finally agreed to pay double...140 ducats.
In the Uffizi, we’ve seen many images of female beauty: from ancient goddesses to medieval Madonnas and wicked Eves, from Botticelli’s pristine nymphs to Titian’s sensuous centerfold, from Parmigianino’s cheesy slippery-slide to Michelangelo’s peasant Mary. Their physical beauty expresses different aspects of the human spirit.
• Consider your essential Uffizi tour over. But on your way to the exit, you’ll pass by much more art, including one high-power stop—Raphael.
But first, continue down the hallway to the café. Here you can enjoy a truly aesthetic experience...
This drinkable art form, born in Italy, is now enjoyed all over the world. It’s called the “Little Capuchin Monk” because the coffee’s frothy light- and dark-brown foam looks like the two-toned cowls of the Capuchin order. Sip it on the terrace in the shadow of the towering Palazzo Vecchio, and be glad we live in an age where you don’t need to be a Medici to enjoy all this fine art. Salute.
• When you’re ready to move on, go down the staircase near the café, to the first floor. Like it or not, you’ll be walking through a dozen or more rooms and a lot more art as you make your way to the exit (Uscita).
(See “Uffizi Gallery—First Floor” map, here.)
At the bottom of the staircase, you could detour left to the Foreign Painters Section to see a couple of Rembrandt self-portraits in Room 49.
Turning right, you enter Room 56, lined with ancient statues that inspired Renaissance painters. Continue through a half-dozen more rooms to Room 65, with portraits by Bronzino of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, his wife, Eleonora, their cute bird-holding son, daughters, and the court jester posing nude—front and back.
• Definitely stop in Room 66 for...
Raphael brings Mary and bambino down from heaven and into the real world of trees, water, and sky. He gives Baby Jesus (right) and John the Baptist a realistic, human playfulness. It’s a tender scene painted with warm colors and a hazy background that matches the golden skin of the children.
Raphael perfected his craft in Florence, following the graceful style of Leonardo. In typical Leonardo fashion, this group of Mary, John the Baptist, and Jesus is arranged in the shape of a pyramid, with Mary’s head at the peak.
The two halves of the painting balance perfectly. Draw a line down the middle, through Mary’s nose and down through her knee. John the Baptist on the left is balanced by Jesus on the right. Even the trees in the background balance each other, left and right. These things aren’t immediately noticeable, but they help create the subconscious feelings of balance and order that reinforce the atmosphere of maternal security in this domestic scene—pure Renaissance.
Raphael was called to Rome at the same time as Michelangelo, working next door in the Vatican apartments while Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Raphael peeked in from time to time, learning from Michelangelo’s monumental, dramatic figures, and his later work is grittier and more realistic than the idealized, graceful, and “Leonardoesque” Madonna.
Pope Leo X is big, like a Michelangelo statue. And Raphael captures some of the seamier side of Vatican life in the cardinals’ eyes—shrewd, suspicious, and somewhat cynical. With Raphael, the photographic realism pursued by painters since Giotto was finally achieved.
The Florentine Renaissance ended in 1520 with the death of Raphael. Raphael (you may see his self-portrait in the room) is considered both the culmination and conclusion of the Renaissance. The realism, balance, and humanism we associate with the Renaissance are all found in Raphael’s work. He combined the grace of Leonardo with the power of Michelangelo. With his death, the High Renaissance ended as well.
• Continue on through a dozen more rooms to the exit. Before leaving, check out the nearby Caravaggio Rooms (81-82), which include the shocking ultra-realism of Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac.
When you’re ready to leave, the exit takes you back down to the WCs/bookstore/post office, and the way out to the street. When you re-enter the real world, you may see it with new eyes.