Guided Tour of the Accademia Gallery in Florence

The Accademia Gallery is one of the world’s best-known and most visited museums. On this tour you’ll explore the various rooms, admire the works on display and be enraptured by the magnificence of Michelangelo’s David.

Founded in 1563 by Cosimo I de’ Medici, the collection housed in this important museum has continued to grow over the centuries, with new objects and pieces of inestimable value and beauty. Just think of Michelangelo’s celebrated David, which was acquired by the museum in 1873. In fact, the statue was originally displayed in Piazza della Signoria, right outside the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio, but a number of incidents, such as a bench falling out of one of the palace’s windows, made it clear that Michelangelo’s masterpiece needed to be moved to a safe place where it could be preserved forever.

Inside the Gallery, in addition to Michelangelo’s David, you’ll also have a unique opportunity to fall in love with other masterpieces. You’ll make an exciting discovery: not everyone knows that the Accademia Gallery is home to a number of exceptional paintings by extremely well-known artists. In fact, you’ll discover unique pieces by masters including Botticelli, Domenico del Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi, Bronzino and Perugino.

Your guide will tell you interesting stories from the period, and you’ll learn all the details of the statues by Michelangelo that are kept here. What’s more, you’ll be able to travel back in time to discover the history of music, as you walk through the Musical Instruments Museum.

What to expect:

Museum of Musical Instruments

This particular exhibition features more than forty musical instruments from the private collections of the Medici and Lorraine families. From Ferdinand I de’ Medici to the Lorraine dynasty, these families were great admirers of music and did their best to attract leading composers and musicians to Florence.
Musical instruments such as Antonio Stradivari’s tenor viola and the world’s oldest upright piano are perfectly at home here.

Hall of the Prisoners

This gallery will leave you speechless. In one glance you can admire Michelangelo’s Prisoners and, at the same time, David in all his magnificence. Every year huge numbers of visitors are awestruck by the beauty in front of their eyes. You’ll be dazzled by the four sculptures of the Prisoners (or Slaves), originally intended to decorate the mausoleum of Pope Julius II della Rovere.
These four statues perfectly exemplify the “unfinished” quality that often recurs in Michelangelo’s work (as on the face of Day in the Medici Chapels). Thanks to this particular technique, you can almost feel the slaves’ fatigue, effort and yearning for freedom.

Michelangelo’s David

Beauty and perfection find tangible expression in this one-of-a-kind masterpiece by Michelangelo.
More than 5 metres tall and carved entirely in marble, the statue was originally commissioned to adorn Florence Cathedral, but on its completion in 1504 it was displayed in Piazza della Signoria, in front of the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio (where you can now see a replica).
David depicts the future king of Israel after his battle with Goliath, from which he emerges victorious. He was chosen as a symbol of the freedom and virtue of the Florentine Republic. You’ll get a close-up view of every detail, and you can move freely around the statue to appreciate all the elements that make this work the epitome of perfection.

Hall of the Colossus

Dominating the centre of this room is the plaster model for Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabines, which helped the sculptor to create the masterpiece in marble that now stands under the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria. Meanwhile, on the walls of the same room, you can admire fine examples of 15th- and 16th-century painting by artists including Paolo Uccello, Filippino Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Perugino.