Palazzo Pitti

Begun in 1458 for the Pitti family, rivals of the Medici, the original nucleus of this palace took up the space encompassing the seven sets of windows on the 2nd and 3rd storeys. Cosimo I and Eleonora di Toledo acquired the palace in 1549 and it remained the official residence of Florence’s rulers until 1919, when the Savoys handed it over to the state.

The ground-floor Museo degli Argenti often has no silver on display. Go figure. Come instead to see the elaborately frescoed audience chambers, which host temporary exhibitions.

Raphaels and Rubens vie for centre stage in the enviable collection of 16th- to 18th-century art amassed by the Medici and Lorraine dukes in the 1st-floor Galleria Palatina, reached via staircase from the palace’s central courtyard. This gallery has retained the original display arrangement of paintings (squeezed in, often on top of each other) so can be visually overwhelming – go slow and focus on the works one by one.

Highlights include Filippo Lippi’s Madonna and Child with Stories from the Life of St Anne (aka the Tondo Bartolini; 1452–53) and Botticelli’s Madonna with Child and a Young Saint John the Baptist (c 1490–95) in the Sala di Prometeo; Raphael’s Madonna of the Window (1513–14) in the Sala di Ulisse; and Caravaggio’s Sleeping Cupid (1608) in the Sala dell’Educazione di Giove. Don’t miss the Sala di Saturno, which is full of magnificent works by Raphael, including the Madonna of the Chair (1511) and portraits of Anolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi (c 1506). Nearby, in the Sala di Giove, the same artist’s Lady with a Veil (aka La Velata; c 1516) holds court alongside Giorgione’s Three Ages of Man (c 1500). The sentimental favourite, Tiberio Titi’s charming portrait of the young Prince Leopoldo de’ Medici, hangs in the Sala di Apollo and the Sala di Venere shines with Titian’s Portrait of a Lady (c 1536).

Past the Sala di Venere is the Appartamenti Reali, a series of rooms presented as they were c 1880–91, when they were occupied by members of the House of Savoy. The style and division of tasks assigned to each room is reminiscent of Spanish royal palaces, all heavily bedecked with drapes, silk and chandeliers.

Forget about Marini, Mertz or Clemente – the collection of the 2nd-floor Galleria d’Arte Moderna is dominated by late-19th-century works by artists of the Florentine Macchiaioli school (the local equivalent of Impressionism), including Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901) and Giovanni Fattori (1825–1908).

Few visitors make the effort to visit the Pitti’s Galleria del Costume, thus missing its absolutely fascinating, if somewhat macabre, display of the semi-decomposed burial clothes of Cosimo I, his wife Eleonora di Toledo and their son Don Garzia. Considering their age and the fact that they were buried for centuries, Eleonora’s gown and silk stockings are remarkably preserved, as are Cosimo’s satin doublet and wool breeches and Garzia’s doublet, beret and short cape.