The Polo Museale Fiorentino is an institution which administers the largest ensemble of art works in Italy.
It includes twenty museums varying in importance from the Uffizi Gallery to the Medici Villa of Cerreto Guidi, from the Accademia Gallery to the Cenacolo of Santa Apollonia. It employs over 900 persons (art historians, administrative staff and warders, restorers, photographers, librarians), is responsible for 250 thousand catalogued works of art, and receives over 5 million visitors each year.
The purpose of the Polo Museale is to care for the immense artistic heritage preserved in its museums, villas, historical gardens and conventual buildings, that has been handed down from the glorious past of the city of Florence and its territory; first and foremost from the Medici collections, and later added to by the Lorraine and Savoy rulers and finally by acquisitions made by the State from ecclesiastical and private collections.
The Polo Museale of Florence is part of the State administration of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. It is run by a Superintendent, who is also a qualified art historian, in the person of Cristina Acidini.
The State Museums of Florence:
Uffizi Gallery Bargello National Museum
The Vasari corridor Museum of the Medici Chapels
Department of Prints and Drawings Museum of San Marco
Museum of Palazzo Davanzati
Accademia Gallery Garden of the Medici Villa of Castello
Department of Musical Instruments Medici Villa of Petraia
Medici Villa of Poggio a Caiano
The Pitti Palace Medici Villa of Cerreto Guidi and
the Historical Hunting and Territorial Museum
Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments
The Gallery of Modern Art 'Cenacolo' of Ognissanti
The Costume Gallery 'Cenacolo' of Andrea del Sarto
The "Museo degli Argenti" (The Medici Treasury) 'Cenacolo' of Fuligno
The Porcelain Museum 'Cenacolo' of Sant'Apollonia
The Boboli Gardens Cloister of the Scalzo
Church and Museum of Orsanmichele
The Contini Bonacossi Collection Museum of Casa Martelli
The Carriage Museum Gallery of Palazzo Mozzi Bardini
Villa Corsini at Castello
Visit the Official Web site http://www.uffizi.firenze.it