Florence, Medici Riccardi Palace gets a makeover: new spaces and new services

In Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, one of the great historical palaces of the Tuscan capital (it was designed in 1444 by Michelozzo on commission by Cosimo il Vecchio, then purchased in 1659 by the Riccardi family, and contains exceptional masterpieces such as Benozzo Gozzoli’s Chapel of the Magi and Luca Giordano’sApotheosis of the Medici ), as well as among the city’s leading cultural institutions, is renewing its spaces by making available to its public, starting next Saturday, September 15, 2018, a new ticket office, a new bookshop and new services. For the occasion, on Saturday 15, free admission will be granted to all residents of the metropolitan city of Florence (in addition to guided tours, also free of charge, and available at 10:30 a.m., 12 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., with limited seating and reservations required at 055 2768224 or by email to info@muse.comune.firenze.it). The renovation is part of a larger project, since the metropolitan city has espoused the enhancement project presented in 2016 by the MUS.E Association, which is committed to the enhancement of civic heritage and envisions the growth and development of the Palace through cultural activities, services and projects that will be implemented over the years. In addition to the inauguration of the new spaces dedicated to the ticket office and bookshop, the new rooms dedicated to cultural mediation, as well as workshops and activities for children, families and adults, will be active starting in October, while guided tours for individuals and schools are scheduled as early as Sunday 16, every Sunday.

The new ticket office will be accessible from Michelozzo’s Courtyard: there will be a reception and public orientation service taken care of by MUS.E staff, with front-office assistance activities. In addition to the ticket office, the bookshop will also be renovated, which along with a selection of books and catalogs will offer quality gifts and local craft products. The cultural mediation program will tell the story of the palace with different languages (craftsmanship, theatricalization, storytelling), leading the public to discover the history of the palace and the illustrious people who lived here and from here contributed to making the history of Florence.

“We are enriching the cultural offer in our city,” said the mayor of the metropolitan city of Florence, Dario Nardella, “with the relaunch of the extraordinary museum of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, a stage perhaps less frequented than others but on which we invest a lot: for example, I remember that in 2016 we recovered the ancient Percorso degli aranci, that is, we made the Cortile di Michelozzo more accessible, with a view to an ever greater opening of our artistic places to tourists but above all to citizens. And it is precisely the desire to make our museums more and more known to Florentines that leads us to now include Palazzo Medici Riccardi in the Metropolitan Sunday circuits, that is, the free opening day of the city’s civic museums, usually on the first Sunday of each month.”

Pictured is the Gallery of Palazzo Medici Riccardi frescoed by Luca Giordano in 1685.

Florence, Medici Riccardi Palace gets a makeover: new spaces and new services

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