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The Uffizi Gallery (Italian Galleria degli Uffizi) is a palace or palazzo in Florence, holding one of the most famous museums in the world.
Building of the palace was commenced in 1560 by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo I de' Medici as the offices for the Florentine magistrates - hence the name uffizi, meaning offices. Construction work ended in 1581. Over the years, parts of the palace evolved into a storage place of many works of art collected by the Medici family. After the decline of the Medici, the art treasures remained in Florence, forming one of the first modern museums.
Here is only a small selection from the world-class collection of paintings: (NB: All the links following the artists' names are to pages explaining the subject or form of the paintings, except for The Birth of Venus, which links to a page on the painting itself)
In 1993, a car bomb destroyed and damaged parts of the palace; a number of pictures were destroyed, several more were damaged. A project is currently under way to expand the exposition space of the museum from some 6,000 square metres to almost 13,000 by 2006, allowing public viewing of many artworks long usually in storage.
Uffizi pictures in Wikipedia
 Woman with a Basket of Spindles, Andrea del Sarto, 1517  Witchcraft (Allegory of Hercules), 1535  Judith Beheading Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi (1612-21)  The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli External links
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