Bargello Museum Tour in Florence
Florence

Price: €57
Min age: 0
Rating 4.8 / 5 [20 ratings]
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Credit Shutterstock.com/Andrei Rybachuk
This imposing 13th-century building, erstwhile prison and torture chamber, was opened as a museum in 1865 to celebrate Florence becoming capital of Italy. Today, it is to 14th- to 17th-century sculpture what the Uffizi Gallery is to Renaissance painting; it houses one of the most important collections in the city.
But it doesn’t finish there; you can also expect an eclectic and fascinating haul of the decorative arts from Islamic art to glittering Byzantine and Renaissance jewellery, ivories, textiles, ceramics and miniature bronzes.
The ground-floor Michelangelo Room showcases masterpieces by the great artist himself (the ‘Pitti Tondo’ and the drunken-eyed Bacchus sculpture, for example) plus his contemporaries; the star turns are Benvenuto Cellini’s bust of Cosimo I and Giambologna’s Mercury. The first floor Salone Donatello contains several of the artists’ most famous works, his two Davids and his St. George.
Here, too, are the two competing trial reliefs representing the Sacrifice of Isaac that were produced by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi to win the contest for the second set of doors of the Florentine Baptistry (1401).
The museum is a 10-minute walk from Santa Maria Novella Station. There are no guided tours in English, but audio guides are available in Italian and English.
There may be queues in high season; you can book tickets online.
It’s open all year round. Closed on Tuesdays and on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month.
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