The story of this place
Commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1560 as administrative offices ('uffizi') for the Florentine state and designed by Giorgio Vasari, the building's upper floor was converted by 1581 into a gallery for the Medici's growing art collection—making it one of the world's oldest museums. Its rooms hold the supreme achievements of the Italian Renaissance: Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' and 'Primavera,' Leonardo's 'Annunciation,' works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Caravaggio. In 1737 the last Medici heir, Anna Maria Luisa, bequeathed the entire collection to Florence on condition it never leave the city. A 1993 Mafia car bomb outside killed five people and damaged works, but the Uffizi endures as a temple of Western art.