About This Location
Palazzo Pitti is the huge Renaissance palace on the Oltrarno side of the Arno. It began as a private project by the merchant Luca Pitti in the mid-1400s, meant to show off serious wealth and status. Everything changed in 1549, when Eleonora of Toledo - wife of Cosimo I de’ Medici - bought the palace and turned it into a Medici residence worthy of the new Grand Duchy. The building was expanded and reshaped over time, with major work linked to architect Bartolomeo Ammannati. Behind the palace is one of the biggest “extra rooms” in Florence: the Boboli Gardens. They were begun in 1549 for Eleonora and became a model for Italian-style court gardens, with formal layouts, paths, statues, and fountains climbing the hillside. Standing in Piazza de’ Pitti, the nearby scene is easy to read. The palace façade is right in front - heavy stone blocks, deep shadows, and rows of oversized windows. Just to one side is the entrance toward the palace museums, and behind it the greenery of Boboli rises up the slope. Streets around the square quickly lead toward the river and Ponte Vecchio, or deeper into the calmer Oltrarno neighborhood.