zi family--such as for example yield interesting
results in the case of the Pazzi and the Albizzi--are doomed to
failure; because Uffizi merely means offices. The Palazzo degli
Uffizi, or palace of offices, was built by Vasari, the biographer of
the artists, for Cosimo I, who having taken the Signoria, or Palazzo
Vecchio, for his own home, wished to provide another building for the
municipal government. It was begun in 1560 and still so far fulfils
its original purpose as to contain the general post office, while it
also houses certain Tuscan archives and the national library.

A glance at Piero di Cosimo's portrait of Ferrucci in our National
Gallery will show that an ordinary Florentine street preceded the
erection of the Uffizi. At that time the top storey of the building,
as it now exists, was an open terrace affording a pleasant promenade
from the Palazzo Vecchio down to the river and back to the Loggia
de' Lanzi. Beneath this were studios and workrooms where Cosimo's
army of artists and craftsmen (with Bronzino and Cellini as the most
famous) were kept busy; while the public offices were on the ground
floor. Then, as his family increased, Cosimo decided to move, and the
incomplete and abandoned Pitti Palace was bought and finished. In 1565,
as we have seen, Francis, Cosimo's son, married and was installed in
the Palazzo Vecchio, and it was then that Vasari was called upon to
construct the Passaggio which unites the Palazzo Vecchio and the Pitti,
crossing the river by the Ponte Vecchio--Cosimo's idea (borrowed it
is said from Homer's description of the passage uniting the palaces of
Priam and Hector) being not only that he and his son might have access
to each other, but that in the event of danger on the other side of the
river a body of soldiers could be swiftly and secretly mobilized there.

Cosimo I died in 1574, and Francis I (1574-1587) succeeded him not only
in rule but in that patronage of the arts which was one of the finest
Medicean traditions; and it was he who first thought of making the
Uffizi a picture gallery. To do this was simple: it merely meant the
loss of part of the terrace by walling and roofing it in. Ferdinand
I (1587-1609) added the pretty Tribuna and other rooms, and brought
hither a number of the treasures from the Villa Medici at Rome. Cosimo
II (1609-1621) did little, but Ferdinand II (1621-1670) completed
the roofing in of the terraces, placed there his own collection of
drawings and