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 Palazzo Pitti's Galleria Palatina. The gallery, reached via a staircase from the central courtyard, 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 Fra' Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child with Stories from the Life of St Anne (aka the Tondo Bartolini; 1452–53) and Botticelli's Portrait of a Woman (c 1475–90) 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, full of magnificent works by Raphael, including the Madonna of the Chair (1511) and Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints (1507–08). Next door, 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).
