This tour includes an expert local guide (private - only for you) for 1 hour and 30 minutes in the Accademia Gallery in Florence
THE ENTRANCE FEES ARE NOT INCLUDED
The Accademia Gallery is closed on Monday
For the disabled the Staff of the museum will provide assistance to reach the first floor of the Gallery
This 1½ hour-guided tour will let you explore with a private (only for you) English-speaking guide the interesting Galleria dell’Accademia. Founded in 1784, the GallerY is one of the most important museum of Florence and includes paintings of the Florentine school dating back to the XIII-XVI centuries, and some sculptural masterpieces by Michelangelo. The masterpiece that attracts the attention of all visitors is the statue of Michelangelo’s David.
The Accademia Gallery owes much of its fame to its extraordinary collection of sculptures by Michelangelo. But the Gallery is also a primary source of knowledge of Florentine painting from the XIV to the XVI century thanks to a rich collection of paintings. Of particular interest it is the XIX-century plaster casts exhibition and the unique collection of Russian icons. The Gallery was born thanks to the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Tuscany to offer students wonderful examples on which to exercise their own style, the reason why they were chosen only works of the Florentine school, considered to be the only ones able to give correct lessons of good drawing. In 1841 the works in the gallery were arranged in chronological order and in 1866 the gallery was enriched with modern paintings purchased by the Grand Duke Leopold II to the painting competition of 1859. In 1873 the Michelangelo’s David was removed from its location in front of Palazzo Vecchio and transported to the Gallery; in 1882 it was built there the grand-stand that still accommodates him. Actually, in the early years of the XX century the Gallery was filled with other original masterpieces by Michelangelo and casts of his most famous sculptures, thus giving rise to a veritable museum of Michelangelo.
Indeed, there is a room that is named after the four huge sculptures called the Prigioni that Michelangelo worked around 1530. These sculptures, along with two more of the same subject (that are at Louvre Museum), should have been the basic element of the great mausoleum that Pope Julius II was conceived as his burial place to be placed at the centre the basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli. Left unfinished in Florence, the Four Prisoners were donated in 1564 by the Michelangelo’s nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti, to the Grand Duke Cosimo I, who had them placed in the Grotto of Buontalenti at the entrance to the Boboli Gardens, from which in 1909 they passed to the Accademia Gallery. At the bottom of the Gallery of Prigioni, in the neoclassical grandstand (work of Emilio de Fabris - 1882) it was placed the famous David that Michelangelo created between 1502 and 1504. The statue is a favourite destination for any visitor to the city, so much so that it has become the symbol of Florence. The David plays the character of cunning winning over brute force. The David was originally placed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio (and now replaced by a copy), as a symbol of freedom of the state and as a sentinel of the civil and political liberties of Florence, recently achieved by the temporary expulsion of Medici and the re-establishment of the Republic. Michelangelo’s masterpiece has been fully restored and presented to the public in 2004 on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the work.
The Galleria dell’Accademia - like the Uffizi Gallery - is enormously popular with Florence tourists: so it is advisable to make a reservation before, so You don’t have to wait in the line.
