Pitti Palace

The Pitti Palace stands on the south bank of the Arno, facing the Oltrarno quarter that has long been one of Florence's most distinctive neighbourhoods. Originally commissioned by the merchant Luca Pitti in the fifteenth century and later acquired by the Medici family, the palace grew over successive centuries into one of the largest royal residences in Italy. Its vast rusticated stone facade, attributed in its original design to Filippo Brunelleschi, remains one of the most commanding examples of Renaissance civic architecture in the city.

Today the palace operates as a museum complex housing several distinct collections, the most celebrated of which is the Palatine Gallery. Spread across the former royal apartments, the Palatine Gallery holds works by Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and Caravaggio displayed in the dense, layered hang that characterised aristocratic collecting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Visitors can explore the palace through timed entry tickets or join a skip-the-line guided tour that moves through the gallery rooms and their extraordinary accumulation of Renaissance and Baroque painting.