Experiences
Destination
Search destinations
Date
Add dates
Pitti Palace & Boboli Gardens
1 experiences and tours
More experiences in Florence
Explore other destinations
A banker started it and three ruling families finished it. Luca Pitti began the palace south of the Arno in the 1450s. The Medici bought it in 1550, moved in, and spent the next two centuries widening the front and filling the hillside behind it with a garden.
This page gathers ways to see the palace and the Boboli Gardens with Artista, from guided visits of the Palatine Gallery to walks through the gardens behind it. Each card shows whether entry is included.
About Pitti Palace & Boboli Gardens
Pitti's money came from banking, and he wanted a house to rival the Medici. The building stayed unfinished after his family's fortunes fell. In 1550 Cosimo I de' Medici and his wife, Eleonora of Toledo, bought it as their new home. Bartolomeo Ammannati added the courtyard, and later dukes stretched the façade to its present length of rough, heavy stone.
The Medici were followed by the Lorraine grand dukes, then briefly by Napoleon's family. When Florence was capital of Italy, from 1865 to 1871, the Savoy kings made it their royal palace. In 1919 King Victor Emmanuel III gave it to the state.
Today it holds several museums under one ticket. The Palatine Gallery hangs more than 500 paintings frame to frame, the way the grand dukes liked them. The Royal Apartments keep the silk walls and furniture of the Savoy court. The Gallery of Modern Art covers Italian painting of the 1800s, the Treasury of the Grand Dukes shows jewels, cameos and ivories, and the Museum of Costume and Fashion displays clothes from the 1700s to recent decades.
What to expect on a Pitti Palace & Boboli Gardens experience
You cross the sloping Piazza Pitti and enter through Ammannati's courtyard. Bags and backpacks go to the cloakroom, then stairs and lifts lead to the first floor.
The Palatine Gallery comes first. The best rooms are the five named after planets, with ceilings by Pietro da Cortona. Look for Raphael's round Madonna della Seggiola and his portrait La Velata, Titian's La Bella and his Magdalene, and Caravaggio's Sleeping Cupid. The paintings are hung by size and taste, not by date, so labels matter. The Royal Apartments continue on the same floor, with throne room, ballroom and bedrooms.
Behind the palace the Boboli Gardens rise up the hill. Above the courtyard is the amphitheatre, with an Egyptian obelisk in the middle. Paths climb past the Neptune Fountain to the top, where the view runs back over the domes and roofs of Florence. Lower down, near the exit, is Buontalenti's Grotta Grande, a cave-like room of shells and stalactites. A long cypress avenue leads south to the Isolotto, a pond with an island.
Plan two hours for the palace highlights and another two for the gardens.
Best time to visit
The palace opens Tuesday to Sunday from 8:15 am to 6:30 pm and is closed on Mondays. The gardens open on most Mondays but close on the first and last Monday of each month. Boboli's closing time moves with the seasons, from 4:30 pm in winter to 7:10 pm in June, July and August.
The palace is rarely as packed as the Uffizi. The gardens are another matter in summer: there is little shade on the upper slopes, so go in the morning or late afternoon and carry water. Spring and autumn are the best seasons for the garden. A good plan is the palace in the morning, before the upper floors warm up, and the gardens after lunch.
Entry is free on the first Sunday of each month, without a time slot.
Getting around
The Pitti Palace is in the Oltrarno, the quieter side of the river. From Piazza della Signoria, cross the Ponte Vecchio and walk straight up Via de' Guicciardini. It takes about ten minutes. Small electric buses stop on the square, and Santa Maria Novella station is about 25 minutes on foot.
Boboli has other gates: on Via Romana, at Porta Romana and near Forte di Belvedere. Check which entrance your tour uses before you set off. If you walk the Vasari Corridor from the Uffizi, you come out inside the gardens, a short walk from the palace courtyard.