Why go
This is the useful counterweight to the palace's famous painting galleries. The former royal apartments retain Medici portraits, furnishings and a domestic scale absent from the grand salons. Other collections bring together 18th- and 19th-century art, silver and hardstone work, and historic costume. They show how the building functioned as a residence and collecting centre across several ruling periods.
The full story
The royal apartments occupy 14 rooms once used by the Medici and their successors. Although much altered, especially in the 19th century, they retain Medici portraits, period furnishings and smaller rooms that give a more domestic counterpart to the Palatine Gallery. The Kings of Italy still used parts of Palazzo Pitti in the 1920s. The Gallery of Modern Art grew from the Florentine academy's 1748 effort to collect prize-winning works for newly decorated state rooms. By the mid-19th century, the accumulation was large enough to move to Palazzo della Crocetta before returning to Palazzo Pitti in 1922. Other collections include silver, cameos and hardstone objects associated with the Medici, as well as costume from the 18th century onward. These galleries reward visitors interested in collecting and court life beyond Renaissance painting.