Palazzo Pitti

Palazzo Pitti is a single enormous palace on the south bank of the Arno that now holds five museums and a chapel under one ticket. The Uffizi Galleries, the state body that runs it, tell its history briefly and usefully: the Florentine banker Luca Pitti began building it in the mid-1400s, possibly to a design by Brunelleschi, at the foot of the Boboli hill beyond the river. Cosimo I de' Medici and his wife Eleanor of Toledo bought it in 1550 and made it the new Grand Ducal residence, and it became the symbol of Medici power over Tuscany.

The Galleries divide the palace into five museums plus the Palatine Chapel, and the division is by floor, which is the only reliable way to plan a route. On the ground floor sit the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, a collection of decorative arts installed in the Medici summer apartments, and the Museum of Russian Icons, which the Galleries describe as the oldest collection of Russian icons in Western Europe, together with the Palatine Chapel, the court chapel of the Habsburg-Lorraine family.

This guide records three hours for Palazzo Pitti. The Galleries publish no suggested visit length of their own — nothing on the palace page, the ticket pages or the visitor rules gives a figure — so three hours is an editorial judgement about the building rather than a number read off the operator's site, and it should be treated that way. It is arrived at by adding the parts. The Palatine Gallery and the Royal Apartments together are the bulk of the visit and are difficult to walk in under ninety minutes at any honest pace, because the paintings are hung several rows deep and the rooms themselves are objects.

Tuesday–Sunday 08:15–18:30. Closed Monday, 1 January, and 25 December. Last admission is 17:30. The Treasury of the Grand Dukes was closed from 3 February 2026 with no reopening date stated. The Room of the Iliad was closed through 25 October 2026, with the Palatine Gallery route modified. The Quartiere del Volterrano rooms were also closed for restoration and refurbishment. The palace opens Tuesday to Sunday, 08:15 to 18:30, and is closed on Mondays, 1 January and 25 December. There is no midday break: the doors stay open straight through. The ticket office closes one hour before the museum, at 17:30, which is the real deadline for anyone arriving late rather than the 18:30 on the sign.

Base adult admission is €16 for a named ticket purchased on the day of entry. A named ticket purchased before the entry date costs €19. The ticket covers the Palazzo Pitti museum circuit; Boboli Gardens requires a combined ticket. One ticket covers all the Palazzo Pitti collections: the Palatine Gallery, the Gallery of Modern Art, the Museum of Costume and Fashion, the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, the Museum of Russian Icons and the Palatine Chapel.

Use the pedestrian entrance from Piazza Pitti. The named PITTI bus stop is served by Autolinee Toscane city-centre routes C1, C3, and C4; the palace approach itself is pedestrianised and vehicles cannot reach the entrance. The Galleries publish no travel directions and no parking information for Palazzo Pitti — not on the palace page, not on the ticket pages, not on the accessibility notice — so nothing below about roads or car parks comes from the operator. What the operator does say is where the door is: the entrance is from Piazza Pitti, the sloping square in front of the facade, and the approach has a 20 per cent gradient.

The approach from Piazza Pitti has a maximum gradient of about 20%; the operator recommends an accompanying person for wheelchair users and visitors with reduced mobility. The ticket office is to the right of the façade, on the same level as the entrance. There are no steps into the Ammannati Courtyard. Lifts provide access to the museum floors. Wheelchairs and walkers are available free of charge at the ticket office, subject to availability and presentation of valid identification. An accessible toilet is in the courtyard on the right, after the cafeteria. The Treasury of the Grand Dukes has been closed since 3 February 2026 for extraordinary maintenance, with no reopening date announced, so one of the five museums the ticket names may not be available.

Personal photography is allowed. The Galleries cite Legislative Decree 83/2014 and permit photographs for personal or study purposes throughout the museums, with one carve-out: works on loan for temporary exhibitions may not be photographed. Flash is prohibited, and so are selfie sticks, light stands, tripods and any kind of professional equipment — the rules list them together as a single ban, and staff apply it. Drones are forbidden outright. Anyone sketching should know that only pencils and digital devices are permitted; colours, stands and cumbersome equipment are not.