Pitty Palace, Florence

Palazzo Pitty In The Night One of my favorite place in Florence The Palazzo Pitti is a vast mainly Renaissance palace. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. For sure i would like to visit it one more time.	Palazzo Pitty Rear View The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a great treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry and luxurious possessions.	Bedroom Of The Queen In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a power base by Napoleon, and later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of the newly united Italy. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, and it's doors were opened to the public as one of Florence's largest art galleries.
The Throne Room Today, transformed from royal palace to museum, is in the hands of the Italian state through the "Polo Museale Fiorentino", an institution which administers twenty museums and has ultimate responsibility for 250,000 catalogued works of art. In spite of its metamorphosis from royal residence to a state-owned public building, the palazzo, sitting on its elevated site overlooking Florence, still retains the air and atmosphere of a private collection in a grand house.	Galery Palatina The Palatine Gallery, on the first floor of the piano nobile, contains a large ensemble of over 500 principally Renaissance paintings, which were once part of the Medicis' and their successors' private art collection. The gallery, which overflows into the royal apartments, contains works by Raphael, Titian, Perugino, Correggio, Peter Paul Rubens, and Pietro da Cortona.	Galleria De Costume Situated in a wing known as the "Palazzina della Meridiana" , this gallery contains a collection of theatrical costumes dating from the 16th century until the present. It is also the only museum in Italy detailing the history of Italian fashions. One of the newer collections to the palazzo, it was founded in 1983 by Kristen Aschengreen Piacenti; a suite of fourteen rooms, the Meridiana apartments, were completed in 1858.