Overview
The Medici assembled it, and the last of the line, Anna Maria Luisa, left the whole collection to Florence in 1743 on the condition that nothing ever leave the city. The rooms run chronologically along two long corridors, so the visit is a walk from Giotto through Leonardo and Michelangelo to Caravaggio. A car bomb in 1993 killed five people and destroyed part of the west wing; the damage was repaired and the gallery reopened within weeks.
Highlights
Book a timed entry, which costs a few euros more and saves two hours in August. Room 8 to room 15 is the core — Piero della Francesca’s diptych, the two Botticellis, Leonardo’s Annunciation and Adoration. The corridor windows over the Arno are the best free view of Ponte Vecchio in the city.