| Florence
& Tuscany Guide / Museums
/ Silver Museum |
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The Silver Museum is housed in magnificently frescoed rooms
formerly the summer apartments of the
grand dukes in the Pitti Palace. The first
room, on the ground floor, has a frescoed
vault by Angelo Michele Colonna depicting
Jupiter descending from Olympus to consign
the emblems of power to the Medicis. The
wall decorations are by Agostino Mitelli.
The next room, frescoed with the Stories
and Triumphs of Alexander, is also the
work of Colonna and Mitelli, as is the
adjoining Throne Room with its allegorical
figures of Power, Justice and Time.
The largest and most
splendidly decorated room, the former
Silver Chamber, is decorated with huge
frescoes carried out on the occasion of
the wedding of Ferdinando II and Vittoria
della Rovere in 1635. The room next to
it holds the funerary mask of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, together with an outstanding
collection of antique vases.
Also noteworthy the Amber
Room which contains an 18th-century silver
relief of the Deposition of Christ in
the style of Roman art. A collection of
16th- and 17th-century vases made from
pietra dura and rock crystal is housed
in the private Council Chamber.
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