Palazzo Pitti

Palazzo Pitti is well known as the Pitti Palace, and it is a renaissance palace in Florence, in Italy. Palazzo Pitti is located a few metres distant from the Ponte Vecchio and over the south part of the River Arno.

Originally, the palace belonged to Luca Pitti, who was a banker in that area. Pitti palace was the official residence of this patron, who died in 1472 before finishing its construction. The palace was started in 1458 with a powerful atmosphere.

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In 1549, the place was sold to the Medici, which was a Tuscany ruling family and became their main residence. After that the palace was enlarged according to the favour of Cosimo, who was the household of the Medici family, by adding a new space, blocks and corridors.

Later, during the XVIII centuries, the palace became a Napoleon power base. But, during the later periods, the whole palace and its belongings, which were ancient paintings, jewelleries, antiques were donated to the Italian people by Victor Emanuel III, in 1919.

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Currently, this place hostes the largest museum in Florence, which exhibits the history from XIV centuries with lot of artistic masterpieces. After donating the palace, it was split into museum and art galleries.

Palazzo Pitti exhibits different interior and structural designs due to different hands, renovations and modernisation along the centuries.

Palazzo Pitti has several rooms containing the artworks, frescos and masterpieces of Giovan Battista Caracciolo, Salvator Rosa, Filippino Lippi etc. The Palatine Gallery is the most important gallery, which contains a large number of vital Renaissance paintings. These paintings belonged to the Medici family and to their private art collection.

During my visit, I have just spent a short time to enter this place comparing to the Uffizi gallery. The entrance ticket cost around 13 euro. The reduced ticket price, which is 6. 50 euro will be applied for students of architecture and young people under the age of 18.

You can check the full information for reduced price tickets from here. They also offer free tickets the first Sunday of each month. I must say, there is a huge queue in this day to enter the palace. But you can reserve your ticket in advance by paying an additional amount. In that way, you can save your time at the ticket queue.

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If you are interested in art, history and architecture, then you must visit this place during your tour in Florence. This place is as important as the Uffizi gallery and the Galleria dell'Accademia. If you wish to know more details, then you can visit with a tour guide, who you can find everywhere in the Florence city centre.

To visit all these place, at least you should have two or three days in Florence since there are much more important things to visit. During my stay, I gave a crucial place to visit Uffizi, Galleria dell'Accademia and Palazzo Pitti. So, do not miss this attractive place.