The Uffizi

The Uffizi in Florence is one of the best known museums in the world and one with the longest tradition. This Renaissance palace was erected in the mid-16th century by the architect Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) to create offices (hence "Uffizi") for the city state under Cosimo I. de Medici. But from earliest times, the patrons and collectors of the Medici family started exhibiting their finest pieces of art in the rooms on the top floor. Connected by a covered walk, these thus gave today’s "Gallery" its double meaning.

The collection housed in the Uffizi includes world-famous masterpieces, both paintings and sculptures, from the Antiquity to the 18th century. The focal point are paintings from the Italian Renaissance and the Baroque age. These are complemented by the surrounding architecture lavishly adorned with ornaments and frescoes.

The Uffizi are, as well, an architectural monument of world-renown and a museum with several thousand visitors per day. To ensure this historical monument is continuously maintained and appropriately modernised under the preservation order, a special architectural department has been set up as part of the Florentine Museum Administration. Its designers work closely with the lighting consultants at ERCO Italy. For the new lighting of the Niobe room, they opted for Parscan spotlights for low-voltage halogen lamps QT12 75W and Parscoop floodlights for halogen lamps QT-DE 300W, mounted on the circumferential cornice to show off to advantage the richly ornamented domes.

The highlight of the collection in the Uffizi is the Botticelli room. It houses a large part of the most famous works of Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), including "The Spring" and "The Birth of Venus". Complementing the daylight coming in through a narrow strip window between wall and roof, the wall surfaces with paintings are evenly illuminated. Here, the designers opted for Optec wallwashers on suspended Hi-trac tracks. To ensure outstanding colour rendition, the halogen lamps in the wallwashers alternate with compact fluorescent lamps.

The First and Second Corridor of the Uffizi simultaneously serve as a sculpture gallery. Originally illuminated purely by daylight falling in through large windows facing onto the Piazzale degli Uffizi, the galleries have now been provided with a very discreet artificial lighting system. This is inconspicuously mounted in and above the casement windows, from where it effectively sheds light on the magnificently painted ceiling coffers. The lighting technology is derived from the ERCO Monopoll wallwasher luminaires for fluorescent lamps, used here as ceiling washlights.

Address:
Piazzale degli Uffizi
50122 Firenze
Italy
Telephone: +39 (0)55 2388651
Fax: +39 (0)55 2388694
E-mail: direzione.uffizi@polomuseale.firenze.it

Opening times:
Tue-Sun 8.15am - 6.50pm, Mon closed

Construction period: 1559 - approx. 1581
Architects: Giorgio Vasari, Bernardo Buontalenti and Alfonso Parigi the Younger