An Invitation to Court: Palazzo Pitti – the Residence of the Medici, Rulers of Florence
Shore Excursions from the Ports of Livorno/Viareggio/La Spezia
The Palatine Gallery is the main gallery of Palazzo Pitti and is comprised of the royal apartments and audience rooms of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess Medici.
The rooms were decorated by the most important Baroque painter of the time, Pietro da Cortona, with superb frescoes and magnificent stuccos and provide a splendid framework for the private art collection of the Medici family and their successors. The paintings are hung and displayed much as they would have been during the rulers’ time, not in chronological order, but to reveal the lavishness and taste of the palazzo’s inhabitants. In these rooms are the works of the 16th – 18th century Masters such as Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and Van Dyck to name a few.
In addition, art objects, furniture, decorations and ornaments reconstruct various moments of the daily life of the Medici which was regulated by a rigid etiquette as described by court documents.
