The Gallerie degli Uffizi, built by Giorgio Vasari between 1560 and 1580, is among the most important museums in the world by virtue of its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the modern period). The collections of paintings from the fourteenth century and the Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces by Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many remarkable works by European painters, such as Dürer, Rembrandt and Rubens (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish). Moreover, the Gallery lays claim to an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family which adorns the corridors, featuring ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.
The Gallery is located on the top floor of the large building originally intended to be the headquarters of the main administrative offices of the Tuscan state. The Gallery was created by Grand Duke Francesco I and subsequently enriched by various members of the Medici family, who were great collectors of paintings, sculpture and works of art. The collection was rearranged and enlarged by the Lorraine Grand Dukes, who succeeded the Medici, and finally by the Italian state. The Uffizi buildings also house other important collections: the Contini Bonacossi Collection and the Collection of Prints and Drawings (Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).
The Vasari Corridor, the raised passageway connecting the Uffizi with Palazzo Pitti, was built by Vasari in 1565. It is hung with a major collection of seventeenth-century paintings and the famous collection of artists’ self-portraits.