PALAZZO PITTI, Exterior

If you stand right in front of the façade you'll be able to recognize the palace's original body, which was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. You should know, however, that its construction began many years after Brunelleschi's death: the new architect who was entrusted with the work site's direction suggested such varied and expensive alternatives that the family spent all its money and the palace remained unfinished. But by then the style had been defined, and the subsequent additions to the palace respected its initial design, at least in the façade, with massive stone blocks at the bottom and beautiful arched windows in the upper floors.

The palace was enlarged in the middle of the sixteenth century when Eleonora da Toledo, Cosimo I de' Medici's wife, purchased it for the new home of the ducal court. The large inner courtyard overlooking the gardens was added as a spectacular panorama for the court, and Giorgio Vasari designed the complicated and ingenious "Corridor" that offers direct access to Palazzo Pitti from the Uffizi by passing over Ponte Vecchio. It was then that the Boboli Gardens were created: a superb example of an "Italian garden" with fountains, fake caves, statues, and hedges....