The Museum of the History of Science Florence

The Museum of the History of Science (Museo di Storia della Scienza) is a fascinating attraction located in the Signoria district of Florence Italy. The museum is just east of the Uffizi Gallery by the Arno River. It contains Galileo's early telescopes and some of his experiments into gravity etc. The Science Museum also has a great collection of old clocks, bikes, maps and even Galileo's middle finger! Francesco and Leopoldo of Lorraine also continued this type of collecting in the eighteenth century, with the aid of qualified specialists. In particular the abate Felice Fontana (1730-1805) strengthened the Museum of Physics and Natural Sciences and its adjoining laboratory. It was from the latter that most of the instruments in the museum today originated, although the museum was then in the Pitti Palace. During the eighteenth century the instruments formerly in the Uffizi also went there. The first floor (11 rooms) is dedicated to the medical nucleus: quadrants, astrolabus, meridianas, dials, compasses, armillary spheres, bussolas, real works of art made by the famous Tuscan and European artists. Galileo's original instruments are also on show, the thermometres belonging to the Accademia del Cimento (1657-1667), the microscopes and the meterological instruments. The second floor (10 stairs) displays a large number of equipment of great interest and beauty, mostly Lorrainese, belonging to mechanics, electrostatics, pneumatology. Other sections are set aside to mechanical clocks, sextants, octants, pharmaceutical and chemical apparatus, weights and measures. In the section dedicated to medicine there are displayed suggestaive obstetrical models in wax and terracotta, which show a real catalogue of anomolous postions of the fetus in the matrix, as well as the collection of surgical instruments of Giovanni Alessandro Brambilla. The large covered roof-terrace on the third floor houses temporary exhibitions, congresses and international gatherings. The Institute has a large antique library for research, continually updated, and specialized in the history of Science. It carries out permanent research on the history of Science and Technology, with particular attention being paid to the recognition and cataloguing of the primary sources. It organizes exhibitions and publishes monographical works, catalogues of instruments, etc. In short it carries out an intense didactic activity, thanks also to the Planetarium fitted out on the ground floor. At the Institute and National Museum of History of Science operate a photographic laboratory and two restoration laboratories. The holdings of the museum, consisting of scientific instruments, come in part from the collections of the Medici. Among the most interesting exhibits are "calculators" used between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries and some rare instruments invented by Galileo Galilei.

Costume Gallery Florence

The historical Costume Gallery, a section of the Museo degli Argenti, has been housed since 1983 in the small neoclassic building of the Meridiana of Pitti Palace with access to Boboli garden. The showcases have been arranged in the historical Lorena/Savoy environment furnished with furniture and paintings which reflect the interior decoration carried out in 1861 for the arrival of Vittorio Emanuele II. Through a series of clothes which are characteristic of each period, the exhibition illustrates the evolution of fashion in the 18th century until about 1930. In the wall show cases there can be found accessories and linen. The costumes are changed alternately every two years, with similar and coeval ones, coming from the rich depository of the same gallery. The ballroom la the place where frequent exhibitions are held on subjects concerning the history of fashion.

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure Museum Florence

The famous Opificio (workshop), founded in 1588, has provided decorations in semi-precious stone (pietre dure) for many important churches, palaces and museums in Florence and throughout the world -- most notably for the Cappella dei Principi in the Medici Chapels. A small museum displays examples from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as tools once used in the workshop. In the Historical Museum attached to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure or hard stones workshop is concentrated all that remains of the former grand ducal workshops created by Cosimo I de' Medici, who turned his family's collecting passion to political ends even in this field of activity. During the sixteenth century, Cosimo and his son Francesco invited leading stone engravers from all over Europe to work in Florence; these included the Milanese Saracchi and the German Bilivert. This raised the technical and qualitative level in the workshops, which were organized in 1588 by Ferdinando I de' Medici to include many artists and artisans in the court orbit such as goldsmiths, jewellers, engravers, lathe-workers and others, who now had a precise organization and an official seat in the Uffizi. The work of stone engravers was particularly in demand in the seventeenth century during the creation of the Medici Chapels, but the House of Lorraine and later, Maria Luisa of Bourbon and Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi took advantage of their skills which had gained for Florence an international reputation. Notwithstanding the changes in style, the technical level of execution remained very high. With the decline in court commissions and the falling-off of the work on the Medici Chapels during the nineteenth century, the Opificio's activity was directed towards the field of restoring marble inlays and mosaics. Its work in restoring antique sculpture is also rightly famous. The present day location is that to which the grand ducal workshops were transferred under Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine. These are in a group of old buildings which formed part of the former Hospital of St. Matthew and the adjacent convent of St. Nicholas. It was here that the laboratories, stores for old and precious materials and the little museum housing drawings, studies, incomplete hard stone inlays and those for the internal use by the Opificio were gathered. Among the more important pieces are Florentine and Northern landscapes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, models and stone panels for the Cappella dei Principi, paintings on "pietra paesina" (where court painters created remarkable effects in paint), water stoups and precious boxes. From the eighteenth century date Zocchi's beautiful paintings designed to be rendered in stone, examples of scagliola decorations and, from the nineteenth century, tablets creating bizarre visual effects which document the vanishing of a technique still striking to visitors. Of great interest are the work tables and instruments and a rare and widely representative range of lithological samples. The Museum annexed to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, currently a modern centre specialising in conservation, directly derives from the manufactory for the artistic production and workmanship of semiprecious stones which was officially founded in 1588 by Ferdinand I de' Medici. The physiognomy of the Museum does not correspond to a particular collector's taste but is more the reflection of life and events of a centuries-old artistic production. The most prestigious creations, frequently gifts on the part of the Florentine Grand Dukes, are conserved in palaces and museums throughout Europe, whereas the incomplete works were left behind in the workshops, along with modified or subsequently disassembled works. To these may be added all those artefacts which survived the 19th century dispersion, ending only in 1882 when the collection took on museum form. The latter examples, some of which are highly impressive and sophisticated, are sufficient in outlining the historic course of craftsmanship which unfolds over three centuries. The Museum, furthermore, possesses an important reserve of ancient marbles and semiprecious stones, whose assortment depends on the inlay technique employed at the time. The Museum was renovated in 1995, to Adolfo Natalini's design. The collection has been rearranged, under the guidance of Anna Maria Giusti, according to theme: the rooms created out of the great hall document works produced in the Grand-ducal Medici and Lorraine periods, whereas the 19th century rooms contain works of the post-Unification period. The mezzanine of the hall is dedicated to the craftsman's techniques and includes a rich set of stone samples, work benches, tools and even didactic examples of a few of the production phases of intarsia and inlay work. It is, indeed, possible in this way to trace the full process, from the initial design through to the finished work, and to discover the most intimate mechanisms of a fascinating episode of Florentine art history.

San Marco Museum Florence

The Museum of San Marco in Florence occupies the spaces of of the Dominican convent that has been reconstructed by Michelozzo in approximately 10 years from 1436 following a assignment of Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici. Michelozzo is successful to create an absolutely modern and evocative atmosphere. The convent had a role very important in the religious and cultural life of the city as it testifies also the vicissitude of friar Gerolamo Savonarola. The reputation of the museum is due above all to the paintings of Angelico Beato that frescoed many atmospheres of the convent. Important are also the works of Frà Bartolomeo, and the section dedicated to reperti coming from from demolished buildings of the historical center in the 1800's. The building is introduced like a complex of great proportions, with all the characters of the florentine architecture. To the flat land we find the large one chiostro where the communitarian life was carried out: the Hostel for the pilgrims adjacent to the income, the Refectory, The room of the Washbasin, the capitolare room and the space to the kitchen and the premises service. This Museum is near of bed and breakfast Home in Palace.

Vasari Corridor Florence

The Corridor was built by Giorgio Vasari in only five months in the 1564 for celebrating the wedding between Francesco I de' Medici and Giovanna of Austria; the Corridor link the Pitti Palace, where the Duke resided, with the Uffizi where he worked. It is a covered walk of about a kilometre in length that starts from the West part of the Gallery Corridor, heads the Arno, follows the river as far as the Ponte Vecchio, and crosses the Old Bridge passing on top of the famous shops. The Corridor was restored and reopened to the customers in 1973 but can only be visited by appointment or to groups. From the windows of the Corridor the visitor can enjoy some magnificent panorama of Florence and the passageway contains more than 700 paintings, all dating from the 17th and 18th centuries by some of the most famous masters of painting of the 16th to the 20th century. This collection was created by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici in the mid 17th century, and receives regular additions to this day. It displays self-portraits by Andrea del Sarto, Beccafumi, Bernini, Rubens, Canova, Hayez, Corot, Ingres, Ensor and others. You can hire the entire Corridor for a private evening view but you can take small three-hour guided tours at other times by contacting.

Opera del Duomo museum Florence

The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, which contains important works from the Cathedral (Duomo) of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Baptistery, and Giotto's Bell-Tower, is crucial for an understanding of Florentine sculpture. Especially worthy of note are the wooden statue of Mary Magdalen, Donatello's masterpiece, and the marble Pieta` by Michelangelo. The Museo also contains a model of the dome by Brunelleschi, and a number of statues which originally formed part of the unfinished facade of the Cathedral, which was demolished in the sixteenth century. Among the most famous of these is the Madonna and Child by Arnolfo di Cambio. Piazza del Duomo, 9 Open: 9-18. Closed Sundays.

Botanical Museum Florence

The Botanical Museum as such has existed since 1842, a fairly late date in comparison with the other Florentine museums. Its formation is essentially the work of the Grand Duke Leopoldo II of Lorraine who profited from the expert help given by the internationally famous botanist Filippo Parlatore (Palermo 1816 - Florence 1877). They gave the already existing collection impetus by the creation of a Herbarium which they wanted to call the 'Central' to indicate its importance as Italy's principal example. And in fact it remained for a long time the richest in Italy and one of the world's best. Parlatore furthered this end by the donation of his own herbarium and a skilful policy of exchanges and purchases. Of particular importance were the Cesalpino, Targion Torzetti and Webb collections; the last having around 80,000 plants was added to the collection in the midnineteenth century. Also in the nineteenth century precious plant collections such as the tropical herbarium were added, sufficient to fill twelve large rooms of the Botanic Institute of the University: the present collection consists of around four million examples. Only one large room is open to the public, in which are exhibited various mixed examples: vegetable samples, plant models, old herbariums and botanical manuscripts. Of note also are the superb wax models by Calamai and Tortori (early nineteenth century) and a spendid painted herbarium manuscript of the end of the fifteenth century. This Museum is very near of bed and breakfast Home in Palace.

The Museum of Carriages Florence

The Museum of Carriages situated in the projecting wing to the right of the Pitti Palace preserves a fine collection of carriages once belonging to the Medici, Lorraine and Savoy Houses. These objects, conceived as functional rather than as works of art, convey an impression of the atmosphere of luxury and fashion characteristic of court life through the centuries. The museum is at present closed to the public for restoration and refitting.

Archeological Museum Florence

The Museo Archeologico contains one of the most important collections in existence for the study of the art and the civilization of the Etruscans. Its collections of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities are also considerable. Because of serious damage caused by the flood of 1966, the rooms on the ground floor are still under restoration. The Museum of Archeology (Museo Archeologico) is located next to Santissima Annunziata Church in the San Marco District of Florence Italy. It contains Etruscan, Greek, Egyptian and Roman artifacts. The Archeological Museum is situated in the Crocetta Palace and contains one of the most important collections of Etruscan art of the world. The Museum is between main of the world for the art and the Etruscan civilizations and contains also many and beautiful Greek works of art. The archeological Museum of Florence was constructed by Giulio Paris for granduchessa Luisa Maria of Austria in 1620 and has the entry in Via della Colonna close to the Santissima Annunziata Public square. To the first floor we can find the Egizio Museum, that it is the second for importance after that one of Turin. The museum endured damages which had to the alluvium of 1966; it subsequently has been restored and today it is in a position to expose to the public the its treasures. This Museum is very near of historical accomodation Home in Palace in Florence.

Accademia Gallery Florence

The Academy Gallery is situated where a time rose the convents of Saint Matteo and of Saint Niccolò di Cafaggio between the Announced Saintest public square and Ricasoli street. The Academy Gallery is famous in the world thanks to the presence of sculptures of Michelangelo: the Prisons, the Saint Matteo and in particular the famous David di Michelangelo. In the Academy Gallery there are important collections of works of art from the Academy of the Design, from the Academy of Fine Arts and convents. The works are constituted by paintings executed by the greater operating masters in Florence between the second half of XIII the Century and the end of XVI the Century. Between the most famous artists that with their works enrich the Academy Gallery we cite Lorenzo Bartolini and Luigi Pampaloni. The Academy Gallery recently has become rich thanks to the Museum of the musical instruments with important instruments coming from the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory and the Medicee and Lorenesi collections.This gallery is very near of bed and breakfast Home in Palace.

Uffizi Gallery Florence

The Uffizi Gallery of Florence is one of the more famous museums of the world. Thanks to its extraordinary collections of paintings and ancient statues are the main tourist attraction to Florence. The Uffizi accommodates a great artistic patrimony, it comprises pictures from the medieval age to that modern, a great number of ancient sculptures and of miniature. The Uffizi Gallery collections of paintings of the 1300's and the Rinascimento contain some absolute works of the art of all the times. Between the artists who with their works have contributed to impreziosire the Uffizi Gallery in Florence we can remember Giotto, Simone Martini, Angelic Blessed soul, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Mantegna, Correggio, Raffaello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Caravaggio. To the inside we find also works of German artists, Dutch and fiamminghi. Between these: Dorer, Rembrandt, Rubens. The Gallery of the Uffizi is situated to the last floor of the great building constructed between in the half of XVI the century on plan of George Vasari. In principle the Palace was destined to receive the judicial offices (Uffizi) of the Fiorentine State. It was realized thanks to Granduca Francesco I and enriched thanks to the contribution of the family Medici. Subsequently the gallery of the Uffizi was reordered and widened under the dynasty of the Lorena, and later by the Italian State. The construction of an aerial gallery must to the same Vasari that, passing over Old Bridge and the church of Felicita Saint, connects the Gallery of the Uffizi with new medicea residence of Pitti palace and finishes in the gardens of Boboli. The Vasariano Corridor is a corridor suspended realized in the 1565 from the Vasari and connects the building of the Uffizi with Old Palace and Pitti Palace. In the Vasariano Corridor important collections of paintings of the 1600's are exposed. Moreover others important collections are ospitatate: the Collection Contini Bonacossi and the Cabinet Designs and Press of the Uffizi. The Palazzo degli Uffizi, which was originally intended to house government offices ("uffizi"), was begun by Vasari in 1560 and completed in 1580, after Vasari's death and according to his design, by Alfonso Parigi the Elder and Bernardo Buontalenti. The world famous collection of the Galleria degli Uffizi, the most important in Italy, consists of ancient sculptures and of paintings from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The Uffizi offers a complete overview of the Florentine school; it also contains paintings of other Italian schools, in particular the Venetian, as well as important Flemish and German paintings. Among the most famous works in this enormous collection are The Birth of Venus, Primavera and Annunciation by Botticelli ; The Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci; The Holy Family by Michelangelo, known also as the Tondo Doni; and the Venus of Urbino by Titian. The Corridoio Vasariano, which joins the Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti by way of the Ponte Vecchio, contains about seven hundred foreign and Italian works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Piazza degli Uffizi 6. Open: 9-19. Closed Mondays.

Alinari Museum of the History of Photography Florence

The Fratelli Alinari Museum of History of Photography was inaugurated in 1985. The first in Italy and one of the fourteen in all the world, it is today the only national institution devoted exclusively to photographic exhibitions. The Alinari Museum carries out an important preservative function; in fact it takes care of about 350,000 positives, old proofs, vintage prints, printed on albumin, bromide, salt paper, calotypes, daguerrotypes, ambertypes and stereoscopies. Here are exhibited the "collections" of Malandrini, Palazzoli, Zannier, Gabba and the signatures are present of the greatest photographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Alinari, Anderson, Caneva, Nunes Vals, Primoli, Beato, Ponti, Naya, Wulz, Mollino, Peretti Griva, Baravalle, Balocchi, among the Italians, and Mac Pherson, Sommer, Bernoud, Graham, Rive, Flacheron, Von Gloeden, Robertson, Fenton, Bourne, Brandt among the foreigners. Moreover the Museum claims important collections of cameras, lenses, old photographic objects, among which an important collection of photographic albums, frames, publicity gadgets both Italian and foreign. To the preservative function is connected the expositive one: since 1985, in fact, the Alinari Museum has initiated a programme of exhibitions, drawing inspiration from three main themes: history of photography, semeiology, monographs on contemporary authors. In collaboration with the Alinari Archives the Museum has presented most of these exhibitions from other palaces, thanks to the close contact with analogue national and international institutions, such as the Fortuny Palace of Venice, the Museum of Orsay, the French Society of Photography and the National Library of Paris, the Royal Archives of Windsor, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian institutions of Washington, the Public Library of New York, the Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon. Largo Fratelli Alinari, 15 - 50123 Florence

Stibbert Museum Florence

The Museo Stibbert in composed by sixty rooms and contain the collection of Federico Stibbert; weapons and ancient armour, jewellery and furnishings. Of particular interest is the celebrated Cavalcade, made up of fourteen armed knights wearing sixteenth-century costumes. Via F. Stibbert 26 - Florence

Silvers Museum Florence

The museum of Silver of Florence is situated to the flat land of Pitti Palace and occupies the rooms splendidly decorated with frescoes of the XVII century of the summery Apartment of the Granduca Ferdinand II of the Medici. The museum of Silver conserve the Treasure of the Medici and the Treasure of Salisburgo, composed by sacred and profane silver of the XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries, that they have given the name to the museum. In the Room of the Donations we find one collection of jewels pertaining to periods between the XVIII and XIX the century. Since 1919 the Museo degli Argenti or Silver Museum has been sited in the ground floor rooms of Palazzo Pitti, originally the grand ducal summer apartment, and in the mezzanine. In it are gathered together various kinds of precious objects such as gems, cameos, semi-precious stones, ivories, jewels and silver. These record the sumptuous life and collecting of the various dynasties which ruled Florence from the Medici to the Lorraine. Its lack of unity renects the diversity of tastes, fashion and working methods of the four centuries of collecting and patronage which went to make it up. The basic core of the collection is of Medici origin and was originally gathered in the palace in the Via Larga (now Via Cavour) in the Quattrocento, where Cosimo the Elder had begun a large and diverse assembly of art objects. This was continued by his son Piero, who was the real founder of the family collections. One of the oldest and most valuable categories was made up of Lorenzo the Magnificent's vases, which were extremely important both historically and aesthetically. The eighteen which remain represent only a tiny part of the original collection and testify to the love of hard and semi-precious stones which is a constant of Medici taste. With Grand Duke Cosimo I in the sixteenth century one may say that the real story of the collection begins, a collection which reflects Cosimo's acuity in making Florence one of Europe's major centres for the production of the so-called 'minor arts' through his protection of artists and his many commissions. Among these artists was Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), who was responsible for the acquisition of many of the crystal vases now in the Museum. Thus originated the grand ducal workshops, which were strengthened by Cosimo's son, the Grand Duke Francesco and organized in their own independent premises by Ferdinando I de' Medici in the early seventeenth century. Engravers of crystal, cameos and semi-precious, gold and silverworkers all competed in displays of invention and superb technique to produce the objects which still constitute the principal core of the Museum. Among the most refined of these is the gold mounted lapislazuli vase by the goldsmith Bilivert (1576-1644) to the designs of Bernardo Buontalenti (1536-1608). Alongside these examples of the Mannerist taste of the sixteenth century are the engraved ivories brought from Germany by Prince Matthias de' Medici in the seventeenth century. Along with the large collections of cameos, some Roman, and the so-called 'Galaterie gioiellate' of Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici (eighteenth century) who commissioned precious jewellery throughout Europe are foreign objects brought to the Pitti mainly by Ferdinando III of Lorraine after his return from exile during the Napoleonic period. The oldest and most beautifully worked are the gold plates, beakers, 'corni potori' and wooden cups mounted in silver and enamel. The orginal importance of the rooms of the Museum has been revalued, underlining even the most bizarre aspects of the Medici taste displayed here but also taking account of the superb decorations which they house. These include the great room frescoed by Giovanni da San Giovanni (1592-1636) with his assistants on the occasion of the marriage of Ferdinando II and Vittoria della Rovere in 1634, where the theme is the evocation through mythology of Medici history at the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Bargello Museum Florence

The Museum of the Bargello fo Florence conserve extraordinary sculptures and "smaller limbs". The Museum of the Bargello of Florence is situated in an imposing building constructed around to the half of XIII the Century, according to the Vasari, on design of Lapo, father of Arnolfo di Cambio, in order to accommodate the Capitano del Popolo; subsequently center of the podestà and the Council of Justice. In the 1502 the palace became center of the Council of Justice and the police, whose head was said, exactly, "the Bargello". In 1786, Peter Leopoldo abolished the capital punishment and the present instruments of torture in the palace were burn. The prisons remained in use until the half of XIX the century, when it were transferred in the former convent of the Bulwarks (Murate); the complete restoration of the building began therefore, to work of Francisco Mazzei. From the 1865 many have been capacities in the palace (become National Museum) important sculptures of the Rinascimento, between which capolavori of Donatello, of Luca of the Robbia, of Michelangelo, of the Verrocchio, of the Cellini. The museum of the Bargello of Florence introduces also collections of bronzetti, waxes, enamels, medals, ambers, seals and tapestries, coming from from the medicee collections and donations of private

The Palatina Gallery Museum Florence

The Palatina Gallery and Real Apartments are situate inside of Pitti Palace (plan by Filippo Brunelleschi), residence of the Granduchi of Tuscany; first The Medici Family, then the Lorena and subsequently the King of Italy. The Palatina Gallery is situated in the left part of the Palace and was created between the end of XVIII the Century and first decades XIX century by the Lorena that placed in the rooms works of the Medici collections. The beautifulst collection that comprises works of illustrious artists like Raffaello, Rubens, Caravaggio, Tiziano, Peter from Cortona and of other Italian and European masters of the Rinascimento and the 1600's. The Palatine Gallery in the Pitti Palace takes its name from the reigning family in whose palace it was housed and was opened to the public by Leopoldo of Lorraine in 1828. Its present layout preserves the character of a private picture gallery with a sumptuous combination of lavish interior decoration and the rich picture frames ordered by the Medici themselves. Unlike most of the museums arranged in recent times, the Palatine Gallery's layout follows neither chronological order nor schools of painting, revealing instead in its hanging and sheer numerical size the personal taste of the great collectors who lived in the palace. The rooms at present occupied by the gallery are reached by the Ammannati staircase and were the apartments and audience chambers of the Medici Grand Dukes. Some of these overlooking the Square were frescoed by Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) with an imposing decorative cycle which makes use of classical myth to allude to the life and education of the prince. The imposing ceilings with their frescoes and large stucco decorations are one of the most important examples of the Baroque style in Florence and provide a splendid framework for the sixteenth to eighteenth paintings on show. One of the main nucleuses of the collection are the paintings by Titian and Raphael, which entered the Medici collection in the 1640s with the dowry of Vittoria della Rovere, last discendent of the Dukes of Urbino and wife of Ferdinando II de' Medici. Among the works of Titian (1490?-1576) is the Portrait of a Gentleman, famous on account of the mysterious identity of the sitter and the Magdalen painted for the Duke of Urbino. Among the Raphaels are Leonardo-inspired portrait of Maddalena Doni, the Madonna of the Grand Duke bought by Ferdinando III and the famous Madonna of the Chair representative of Raphael's last phase. Seventeenth century painting is well represented. Of outstanding interest are Rubens' Four Philosophers and Allegory of War and the portrait of Isabella Clara Eugenia. Van Dyck's magnificent portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio shows all the artist's richness of colouring, and Giusto Sustermans' portraits immortalize the whole grand ducal family. Spanish painting is well represented by the sweetness of Murillo's Madonna and Child. Apart from exceptionally important works by Bronzino (1503-1572), Fra Bartolomeo (1472- 1517) and Piero di Pollaiolo (1441-1496), the Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio (1573-1610) and the seventeenth century portraits of Pourbus and Velasquez, the decoration of many of the rooms where they are hung is also important, both historically and artistically. The Music Room for example is decorated and furnished in the Neo-classical taste, while the Putti Room is devoted entirely to Flemish painting. The Stove Room is one of the masterpieces of Pietro da Cortona, who frescoed it in 1637 with the Four Ages of Man, the Ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron. Apart from being one of the major monuments of Baroque painting, testifying to the Medici court's awareness of leading Roman trends of the day, the Stove Room reveals the Grand Duke Ferdinando II as an alert and intelligent patron in the tradition of his family at a moment when Florentine culture was going through a phase of diminished splendour.