Enhance your holiday travel experience by downloading this audio tour of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
Great Discoveries audio tour of the Galleria degli Uffizi will provide today's tourist with the most entertaining and enlightening way to visit the one of the world's truly great art galleries. This magnificent gallery, commonly known as simply the Uffizi, is home to a collection of Medieval and Renaissance paintings by some of the most hallowed names in Italian and European art. The exhibition area is composed of over 45 rooms that contain about 1,700 paintings, 300 sculptures, 46 tapestries, and 14 pieces of furniture and ceramics. The Uffizi actually owns about 4,800 works of art but the remaining pieces are either in storage or on loan to other museums.
During the mid 16th century the government of the Grand Duke Cosimo I, de Medici was expanding so rapidly that it was outgrowing the capacity of the next-door Palazzo Vecchio. Cosimo I commissioned Giorgio Vasari to build additional space to house the offices of the city's magistrates and the ever-expanding number of bureaucrats. The name Uffizi derives from the Italian word uffici, meaning offices.
The Tribune soon became famous the world over and visitors came from afar to admire the masterpieces displayed. The Tribune fully embodied the principles of a modern museum and as such, it is considered to be the world's first museum.
The Medici, the absolute rulers of the Florence and Tuscany, had married into some of the wealthiest families in Europe, enabling them to continue enriching their gallery. Fernando had the family's classical statues from the Villa Medici in Rome transferred to Florence and he soon added the finest pieces from the Medici Armory and a superb collection of mathematical instruments. The Gallery benefited from other substantial acquisitions in the 17th century, notably that of the wife of Ferdinando II de Medici, Vittoria della Rovere, whose dowry contained the immense patrimony of her grandfather, Federico the Duke of Urbino, which included precious works by both Raphael and Titian. Another important acquisition that enriched the Medici collections was Cardinal Leopold's bequest to his nephew Cosmo III de Medici, who built new rooms in order to accommodate it, and constructed a new and more monumental entrance to the Uffizi.
Anna Marie Ludovica, the last of the Medici and the widow of the Elector Palatine, added works by German and Flemish masters. Anna Maria died in 1737, but prior to her death she bequeathed, through a testament known as the family pact, that all of the art treasures gathered by the powerful dynasty would forever belong to the city of Florence and that they would be at the disposal of visitors from the entire world. Thanks to this testament, it was possible to recover many of the works of art stolen during World War II and also during the Napoleonic era, even though, unfortunately, many masterpieces remain in France.
Here you will find paintings by the early masters like Cimabue and Giotto and magnificent Renaissance works by Veneziano, Uccello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Lippi, Botticelli, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and many others. Two of the world's most famous paintings, Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus and 'La Primavera are displayed here. Visitors are guided through 45 rooms, containing works by hundreds of artists who were active between the early 13th and the late 18th centuries. The most important pieces, by the most prominent European artists of their time have been carefully selected for discussion. As you view these carefully selected treasures, our professional narrators, accompanied by historically appropriate background music, will delight, amuse and inform you, making your visit a most memorable experience.
Guides are recorded in easy to follow segments that are readily located your iPod. This 4 hour and 21 minute, 36 track, audio tour is designed to work with an easy to read building diagram, with clearly numbered locations, which coordinate with the track numbers and descriptions displayed on your iPod.
Author / Spoken By Jessica Krzywicki / Christopher Kent
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Enhance your holiday travel experience by downloading this audio tour of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
Great Discoveries audio tour of the Galleria degli Uffizi will provide today's tourist with the most entertaining and enlightening way to visit the one of the world's truly great art galleries. This magnificent gallery, commonly known as simply the Uffizi, is home to a collection of Medieval and Renaissance paintings by some of the most hallowed names in Italian and European art. The exhibition area is composed of over 45 rooms that contain about 1,700 paintings, 300 sculptures, 46 tapestries, and 14 pieces of furniture and ceramics. The Uffizi actually owns about 4,800 works of art but the remaining pieces are either in storage or on loan to other museums.
During the mid 16th century the government of the Grand Duke Cosimo I, de Medici was expanding so rapidly that it was outgrowing the capacity of the next-door Palazzo Vecchio. Cosimo I commissioned Giorgio Vasari to build additional space to house the offices of the city's magistrates and the ever-expanding number of bureaucrats. The name Uffizi derives from the Italian word uffici, meaning offices.
The Tribune soon became famous the world over and visitors came from afar to admire the masterpieces displayed. The Tribune fully embodied the principles of a modern museum and as such, it is considered to be the world's first museum.
The Medici, the absolute rulers of the Florence and Tuscany, had married into some of the wealthiest families in Europe, enabling them to continue enriching their gallery. Fernando had the family's classical statues from the Villa Medici in Rome transferred to Florence and he soon added the finest pieces from the Medici Armory and a superb collection of mathematical instruments. The Gallery benefited from other substantial acquisitions in the 17th century, notably that of the wife of Ferdinando II de Medici, Vittoria della Rovere, whose dowry contained the immense patrimony of her grandfather, Federico the Duke of Urbino, which included precious works by both Raphael and Titian. Another important acquisition that enriched the Medici collections was Cardinal Leopold's bequest to his nephew Cosmo III de Medici, who built new rooms in order to accommodate it, and constructed a new and more monumental entrance to the Uffizi.
Anna Marie Ludovica, the last of the Medici and the widow of the Elector Palatine, added works by German and Flemish masters. Anna Maria died in 1737, but prior to her death she bequeathed, through a testament known as the family pact, that all of the art treasures gathered by the powerful dynasty would forever belong to the city of Florence and that they would be at the disposal of visitors from the entire world. Thanks to this testament, it was possible to recover many of the works of art stolen during World War II and also during the Napoleonic era, even though, unfortunately, many masterpieces remain in France.
Here you will find paintings by the early masters like Cimabue and Giotto and magnificent Renaissance works by Veneziano, Uccello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Lippi, Botticelli, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and many others. Two of the world's most famous paintings, Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus and 'La Primavera are displayed here. Visitors are guided through 45 rooms, containing works by hundreds of artists who were active between the early 13th and the late 18th centuries. The most important pieces, by the most prominent European artists of their time have been carefully selected for discussion. As you view these carefully selected treasures, our professional narrators, accompanied by historically appropriate background music, will delight, amuse and inform you, making your visit a most memorable experience.
Guides are recorded in easy to follow segments that are readily located your iPod. This 4 hour and 21 minute, 36 track, audio tour is designed to work with an easy to read building diagram, with clearly numbered locations, which coordinate with the track numbers and descriptions displayed on your iPod.
Author / Spoken By Jessica Krzywicki / Christopher Kent
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