The Uffizi, one of the most famous museums in the world, first saw the light of day in 1560 when Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici commissioned Giorgio Vasari tp build a large building with two wings “on the river and almost in the air” to house the Florentine government’s administrative and legal offices (“uffizi”). The museum today is home to a mesmerising art collection which includes countless masterpieces by famous artists from the Middle Ages up to the present day: Giotto, Gentile da Fabriano, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio are but a few of the names whose work you can admire here, and the paintings, on wood or canvas, are accompanied by a large number of classical statues, while a unique feature of the gallery is its constantly growing collection of artists’ self-portaits.