Impressions

    The unmistakable image of the hills, in succession from the Apennines to the sea, with the vegetation and its green and gold background variegated by cypress, seems to introduce the traveller into a carefully painted picture.
    It is therefore inevitable feel the sense of art just by breathing this air, so the transition to the scenic splendor of the city centers is designed to seem as natural as the design of a huge fresco.
    The vision of the whole already gratifies the sight, which is involved and caught so much that is difficult diverting attention, but by approaching and by descending in the particular, you can discover the meaning of perfection at every level up to the minutest detail.
    The Tuscan artist is in fact also excellent craftsman, to the point that it is difficult to distinguish the type of work, because even some objects for daily use here are worthy of a masterpiece.
    The sense of taste and of beautiful forms dates back to ancient times, and even the most fanciful creative impulses are adapted to the demands and to the criteria of proper proportion.
    Nothing seems out of place, everything is integrated and harmonized like a color palette expertly mixed and dispensed.
    The formal balance, even in the most monumental ambitions of the civil and religious buildings, always gives a perfect size to each work.
    The profusion of aesthetic quality, then, is so exceptional that it could upset the sensitive minds, up to an ecstatic wonder.
    Because in contact with these concrete ideals of beauty, something inevitably happens: you can be intellectually shaped by the wonder aroused by every figurative expression, as in front of the amazing work of Brunelleschi, and you can capture the indelible spirit of the great men, conforming to principles of the humanistic hear.
    Thus, through meditation on the manner of the high minds, the original thought finally comes, by crossing every bold perspective, moving towards the immeasurable asymptote of the genius.
   

Uffizi Gallery

    The Uffizi were originally conceived by Cosimo I de' Medici to combine the administrative and judicial offices of the Duchy to a location next to the Palace of the Signory.
    By Giorgio Vasari was then designed a monumental building with two arcaded arms, which was built starting in 1560 and completed in 1580 by Bernardo Buontalenti.
    Vasari's work is also the famous Corridor that, through the Uffizi and around the city, connects Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti.
    The nucleus of the Gallery was founded by Cosimo's son, Francesco I, who made close down the original loggia storey to house his collection of works of art and memorabilia, including an already wonderful series of paintings and sculptures.
    In particular, to worthily expose the archaeological exhibits, by Buontalenti was built the magnificent octagonal Tribuna , with dome encrusted with mother of pearl and an inlaid marble floor, inspired by the classic model of the Tower of Winds in Athens, celebrated by Vitruvius.
    The collection was enriched with Ferdinand I, and continued to expand with the successors, until the death of Gian Gastone, with which the Medici dynasty died out in 1737.
    The Florentine collections of the family were then transferred to the new Lorena dynasty, with the convention to leave them as a heritage to the city.
    So, the Gallery was subjected to a reorganization in base to modern rationalistic and functional criteria, and it was open to the public in 1769.
    The exhibited works, especially paintings, including some of the greatest masterpieces of all time, make it one of the most famous and important museums in the world.
    In dozens of rooms you can admire artists such as Cimabue, Duccio and Giotto, with their splendid Majesties , Masaccio, Gentile da Fabriano, Paolo Uccello, with his famous Battle of San Romano , Beato Angelico, Antonello da Messina, Piero della Francesca , with his Portraits of the Dukes of Urbino , Filippo Lippi, Andrea Mantegna, Antonio and Piero del Pollaiolo, Sandro Botticelli, with his very famous pictures of the Spring and the Birth of Venus .
    And again, Leonardo da Vinci, with his Annunciation and the unfinished, but astonishing, Adoration of the Magi , Pietro Perugino, Luca Signorelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti, with his magnificent Tondo Doni , Raphael, with his famous Madonna of the Goldfinch , Andrea del Sarto , with his Madonna of the Harpies , Giovanni Bellini, Titian, with his great Venus of Urbino , Jacopo Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Agnolo Bronzino, with his famous Portrait of Eleonora of Toledo , Correggio, Parmigianino, with his Madonna with the long neck , Caravaggio, with the famous Bacchus and the Head of Medusa , Tintoretto, Rubens, Rembrandt, Guido Reni.