The Unmissable / ACCADEMIA GALLERY

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Michelangelo's David Statue is the protagonist of the Accademia Museum

The David statue was sculpted in Florence by a not yet thirty-year-old Michelangelo, it was transferred from Signoria Square to the Accademia Gallery only in 1873. It is incredible to think that this absolute masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture has spent almost four centuries of life in the open air before arriving in the gallery! Along with David the Gallery houses the Four Prisoners, famous examples of 'unfinished' style that the artist carved in Rome for the funeral monument of Pope Julius II.

Michelangelo's sculptures are only one of the sections of the Accademia Gallery, where many medieval and Renaissance paintings are on display.

In the first room that houses the full-scale plaster model for the Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna you will admire paintings by Pietro Perugino, Alessandro Botticelli, Filippino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio. Three other rooms in the Gallery are entirely dedicated  to medieval Florentine painting. Admiring these precious works you will be able to retrace the evolution of the pictorial style from the Gothic tradition to the Renaissance painting through the technical and stylistic innovations introduced into the art by Giotto.

Inside the Gallery we will also visit the Museum of musical instruments, belonging to the nearby Luigi Cherubini Music Conservatory. It houses a series of precious musical instruments from the Medici and Lorraine grand-ducal collections, including a very rare viola built for the great prince Ferdinando de' Medici by the famous luthier Antonio Stradivari.