The most important art collection in Italy, and one of the richest in the world, was started in 1580. Since the beginning it was arranged (with many changes along the way) in the majestic Uffizi Palace, erected by Vasari and completed by Buontalenti. It contains much of the fundamental production of Tuscan artistic schools from the 13th c. onward, as well as works by Venetian, Roman, Emilian, German, Flemish, Spanish and French painters.

Masterpieces by Cimabue, Duccio (“Madonna Rucellai”), Giotto (“Madonna with the Holy Child, Angels and Saints”), Simone Martini (“Annunciation”), Daddi, Gaddi, Orcagna, Lorenzo Monaco, Gentile da Fabriano, Paolo Uccello, Masaccio and Masolino, Domenico Veneziano, Piero della Francesca (“The Dukes of Montefeltro”), Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Baldovinetti, A. and P. Pollaiolo, Botticelli, (“Birth of Venus”, “Primavera”, etc), L. di Credi, Ghirlandaio, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes (Portinari Tryptych), Leonardo (“Adoration of the Magi”, “Annunciation”), Verrocchio, Signorelli, Perugino, Berruguete, Pontormo, A. del Sarto, Bronzino, Melozzo da Forli, Durer, Cranach, Giambellino, Holbein, Altdorfer, David, Correggio, Mantegna, Luini, Moroni, Rosso Fiorentino, Michelangelo (“Holy Family”), Raphael (“Madonna of the Finch”, “Pope Leo X”, etc), Titian (“Venus of Urbino” and other paintings), Parmigianino, Lotto, Veronese, Tintoretto, Bassano, El Greco, Rubens, van Dyck, Caravaggio, A. Carracci, Rembrandt, (“Old Rabbi” and two self-portraits), Ruysdael, Guardi, Canaletto, Chardin, Nattier and Goya.

Also very important are the classical and hellenistic statues, witnessing the collectioning passion of the Medicis and the Lorenas (“Venus”, “Knife-grinder”, the group “Niobe and the Niobides”). Collections of tapestries (16th and 17th c.), ancient marbles and miniatures. On the ground floor, in the premises of the former church of S. Pietro Scheraggio, valuable frescoes, including the series of the celebrities by A. del Castagno (around 1450), and “Annunciation” by Botticelli.