The story of this place
Built from 1458 for the banker Luca Pitti, a rival of the Medici, this vast palace was ironically bought in 1550 by Cosimo I's wife Eleonora of Toledo and became the Medici grand-ducal residence. Behind it stretch the Boboli Gardens, one of the first and most influential formal Italian gardens, laid out with amphitheatres, fountains, grottoes, and a Roman obelisk. The palace later housed the House of Lorraine, then Napoleon's sister Elisa Baciocchi, and briefly Italy's King Victor Emmanuel II when Florence was national capital from 1865 to 1871. Today its wings hold the Palatine Gallery's Raphaels and Titians, royal apartments, and costume and porcelain museums.