Despite the great wealth of interesting and fascinating corners our homeland has to offer, the main reason many people come to Tuscany is to visit the most famous landmarks and experience the beautiful things that made this land famous all over the world. Few of these places are as packed of incredible things as the imposing museum stuck between the Arno and Palazzo Vecchio in downtown Florence. Despite it being one of the most visited places in the world, thanks to the amazing masterpieces that are conserved there, not many people are aware of its curious back story, the remarkable man who turned it into what it is and the many secrets that it hides. In order to celebrate the 482nd birthday of its founder, this week What's Up Tuscany brings you back to Florence to tell you everything there is to know about the beautiful Uffizi Museum. If you listen to the entire episode you will learn about the wacky Grand Duke that decided to turn the massive office building his father commissioned into a place where to show the beautiful things he had bought around the world. We will tell you how the Uffizi got its weird name, how back in the day inside you could find crazy things like a fully fledged theatre, a foundry and a room where the Medicis displayed oddities from all over the world. In the last chapter you will have a better idea of how many incredible things are hidden in the Uffizi vault, including one of the world's leading portrait collections that hasn't been shown for a few decades due to lack of space. The Uffizi is truly a living representation of this land: you can go there 10 times and you'll always learn something new. This, among many things, is what makes Tuscany so special. Email: [email protected] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/larno.it Twitter: @arno_it / @WhatsupTuscany LINKS TO SOURCES (ITALIAN ONLY) https://www.tuscanypeople.com/francesco-i-dei-medici/ https://www.uffizi.it/gli-uffizi/storia https://www.fiorentininelmondo.it/it/home/338-dietrofront-il-lato-nascosto-delle-collezioni-agli-uffizi.html https://www.partecipart.it/arte-cultura/5-curiosita-uffizi/ BACKGROUND MUSIC Pipe Choir - Bom Bom Breakthrough (Instrumental) Pipe Choir - Children of the Son (Instrumental) Pipe Choir - A dark blue Arc (Instrumental) The Passion HiFi - Buried Pipe Choir - Almost Time (Instrumental) Render - Prism Wayne John Bradley - Blues Rock Original Instrumental All released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License https://soundcloud.com/pipe-choir-2/pipe-choir-bom-bom-breakthrough-creative-commons-instrumental https://soundcloud.com/pipe-choir-2/pc-one-children-of-the-son-creative-commons-instrumental https://soundcloud.com/pipe-choir-2/pc-one-a-dark-blue-arc-creative-commons-instrumental https://soundcloud.com/freehiphopbeatsforyou/free-the-passion-hifi-buried https://soundcloud.com/pipe-choir-2/pipe-choir-almost-time-instrumental-creative-commons https://soundcloud.com/argofox/render-prism https://soundcloud.com/ayneohnradley/blues-rock-original-instrumentalcreative-commons http://www.pipechoir.com/