On a past visit in the heat of the summer we visited the Pitti Palace and Gardens-a lovely tour, full of jewels, furniture, treasures and even clothes of the Medici Family-all located right after you cross the Ponte Vecchio…
This trip we visited the Palazzo Vecchio (old palace). We went out searching for the Children’s Museum -which we have attempted to go to several times to always find it closed that day-this time I was certain we had the right day so off we went to this “hand’s on” museum located in the Piazza della Signoria-as we arrived the information desk confirmed that the museum no longer existed BUT if we returned in one hour we could get a private guided tour of the Palace!!
The interesting fact about this structure is that it still houses the Florence’s town hall and government offices. Built in 1322, the first stop on the tour was the “Salone dei Cinquecinto” (Room of 500)-a massive room where they held meetings for the Floremce Republic-it is filled with amazing frescoes that show many long fought wars, gold inlaid ceilings and several sculptures including one done by Michelangelo- “Victory”.
Then we proceeded to see the series of suites designed by Cosimo’s wife Eleonora which were all grand and beautiful, my favorite was the room that had fescoes depictiing Earth, Wind, Fire and Water-where we saw a nice rendition of ” The Birth of Venus” by Botticelli (my parents would be proud how much art and biblical references I understood and remembered from my college days!).
I have never seen so much spender and ….gold! I mean-every ceiling was decorated in gold…they obviously are not aware of the value of gold right now in the US or they’d be scrapping that stuff off and running to the nearest GOLD FOR CASH office! I thought about it but the tour guide kept a pretty good watch on us and I’m sure I would have embarrassed the kid…
The two best parts about this tour (besides the fact that is was packed with info, not too long and cheap) was the Map Room and the secret passages!! Yep-Cosimo built himself a room of nothing but MAPS and a huge globe in the center made out of wood-my Mom (a very talented map reader and lover of all things mapped) would have been in heaven here…the maps even showed the “new world” in fairly good detail.
Behind the walls in the map room were secret shelves, cupboards and even a secret passage ! This passage, leading to a balcony and private bedroom was to hide the..you guessed it..the mistress…I mean no royal family would be complete without the home wrecker right? The room even had a secret window so she could see and hear all the meetings going on in the Room of 500 ! Scandal! Even the wife didn’t get that honor…I’m sure the mistress then gave her “opinions” like any good woman would to her political lover…anyway..it was all very mysterious and we felt like we knew a secret no one else in Florence knew!
I highly recommend this tour-easy to find, and you are going to be right there anyway because that is THE Piazza to have a gelato in after all…
Michealangelo art in Room of 500.
BIG Fireplaces. One of the family murals.
Cosimo The Old Palace.
Marble marble everywhere… Coutyard details
