The Hall of Maps in the Uffizi Gallery

– Hall of Maps Final Report –

The Hall of Maps (Sala delle Carte Geogrrafiche) is a unique space within the Uffizi – right next to the Botticelli Galleries, and to the Tribuna –, which showcases the Tuscan territory dominated by the Medici family. The frescoes specifically depict The Florentine Heritage Dominion, The State of Siena (conquered by the Medici in 1555) and The Island of Elba (heavily contested between the Medici and the Holy Roman Empire on the one hand, and by the French King and his ally, the Ottoman Muslim Empire on the other hand). They were painted by the Florentine Late Mannerist Ludovico Buti after drawings made by the cartographer Stefano Bonsignori for Ferdinando I de’ Medici (1549 -1609). The Hall of Maps ideally continues a similar room in the Palazzo Vecchio, which Ferdinando’s father, Cosimo I de’ Medici had decorated between 1564 and 1575 by the Domincan friar Egnazio Danti and the Olivetan monk and cartographer Stefano Bonsignori, with 53 maps of countries from the entire world, and which culminated with a huge terrestrial globe (1564-1571) in its center. The decoration of the Hall of Maps is completed with mythological paintings by Jacopo Zucchi, which were originally painted for the Villa Medici in Rome, and which were so dear to Ferdinando that he brought them along from his former residence as a cardinal in Rome to the Uffizi and had them fitted into the ceiling; and by a panoramic window, which completes the idea of the Medici’s territorial dominion with an actual outlook over the cityscape.

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