Your LivTours Private Accademia and Uffizi Tour will start near the Uffizi Gallery – the former offices of the Medici Family. It seems only fitting that the museum with the largest Renaissance art collection started in the Renaissance, but without ever intending to be a museum! It was in 1559 when the Grand Duke of Florence, part of the infamous Medici Family, commissioned a Florentine architect to design a building for local government offices and he did just that. No one knew that by 1765 the public would be admiring this once-private art collection that decorated the offices (Uffizi in Italian) commissioned by the Medici Family. By 1865 the Uffizi Gallery was allowing visitors to enjoy one of the most world-renowned art collections which consists of masterpieces by the likes of Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and nameless others.
You will enjoy exclusive LivTours access to the Uffizi Gallery, where your expert private guide will show you masterpieces such as The Birth of Venus, one of the iconic Renaissance depictions of the mythological goddess as she emerges from the sea on a shell. You will also see Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo, the result of a commission from a prominent Tuscan family, showing a portrait of the Holy Family with the Virgin Mary at the forefront. Michelangelo’s only painting in Florence.
After you have visited the Uffizi Gallery, it is a short walk to the Galleria dell’Accademia where you will, once again, enjoy exclusive LivTours access. Now home to Michelangelo’s David, this building housing the Accademia was once a convent, but was converted by Pietro Leopoldo into a studio and museum space for the Accademia delle Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts) students; providing a place to study, but also a place to admire the greatest artworks of the past. Nowadays, the Accademia carries the reputation of being the second most visited Museum in Tuscany with the sculpture of Micelangelo’s David at the center of its crown of jewels.