Galleria dell'Accademia: Michelangelo's David

Founded 1784 by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo

Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, reorganised the city's drawing school as the Accademia di Belle Arti in 1784 and attached a gallery of paintings for its students to copy. The altarpieces came from churches and convents the same Grand Duke was suppressing, which is why the gold-ground rooms hold so many large Florentine panels from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The art school still occupies the neighbouring buildings on Via Ricasoli; the gallery became a state museum in its own right in the twentieth century.

David arrives, 1873: the Tribune was built for it

Michelangelo carved David between 1501 and 1504 and the city set it outside Palazzo Vecchio on Piazza della Signoria, where it stood for more than three centuries in the rain. In 1873 it was moved indoors to the Accademia to stop the weathering, and the Tribune, the skylit apse at the end of the long gallery, was built to hold it. A marble copy now stands on the square and a bronze one at Piazzale Michelangelo; both are free.

The original is about 5.17 metres tall, a figure taken from Wikipedia rather than the museum.

Since 2025, one institute with the Bargello

From 2025 the gallery and the Bargello museums form a single state institute, the 'Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze e Musei del Bargello'. In practice this changed the tickets: the two museums now sell through the same B-ticket shop and share the 48-hour and 72-hour combined tickets. It also means the Bargello, a five-minute walk south with Donatello's David and Michelangelo's Bacchus, is the natural second stop on the same ticket.

Sala del Colosso: Giambologna's clay Sabines

The first room takes its name from a plaster cast of one of the Dioscuri from Monte Cavallo in Rome that once stood here. What fills it now is Giambologna's full-size model in unfired clay for the Rape of the Sabine Women, the three-figure spiral he carved in marble in 1582 for the Loggia dei Lanzi on Piazza della Signoria, where the marble still stands. The clay is the original; the marble is the copy in the sculptor's own hand.

Around the walls hang altarpieces by Perugino, Filippino Lippi and Fra Bartolomeo from the years around 1500.

Galleria dei Prigioni: the four Prisoners, St Matthew and the Palestrina Pietà

The long hall to David is lined with Michelangelo's four unfinished Prisoners, carved between about 1520 and 1530 for the tomb of Pope Julius II that was never built as planned. The figures seem to fight their way out of the block, and the chisel marks show the working method: the front carved first, the back still rough. The St Matthew, begun in 1505 for the cathedral, stands with them.

The Palestrina Pietà at the end of the hall is attributed to Michelangelo by some scholars and doubted by others; the museum label says so. On a guided tour this hall is where the guide earns the fee.

The Tribune: David

David stands at the end of the hall under the skylight, on a plinth that puts the eyes above yours, and the hall is arranged so that you see the statue from a distance before you reach it. Walk the full circle. The right hand is enlarged, the head is large for the body because the statue was designed to be seen from below on the cathedral roofline, and the sling over the left shoulder is the only sign of the story.

The Tribune's two side apses hold Florentine paintings of the sixteenth century. The crowd is thickest between 10:00 and 15:00 and thinnest at 08:15 and after 17:00.

Salone dell'Ottocento: the Gipsoteca

Turn left at David and the Salone dell'Ottocento holds the Gipsoteca, the plaster-cast collection of Lorenzo Bartolini and Luigi Pampaloni, the two leading Florentine sculptors of the early nineteenth century. Hundreds of busts and full figures stand in rows, each with small black dots on the surface: the reference points used to copy the plaster into marble. Most visitors walk past it.

Give it ten minutes, because it is the one room where you can see how a sculpture was actually made.

Gold-ground rooms: Giotto, the Gaddi, Orcagna, Lorenzo Monaco

The rooms of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century painting on the ground floor and upstairs hold the Florentine altarpieces the academy collected for its students: Giotto's workshop, Taddeo and Agnolo Gaddi, Orcagna's Pentecost and Lorenzo Monaco's large panels. The Tree of Life by Pacino di Bonaguida and the painted chest with the Adimari wedding procession, a street scene of fifteenth-century Florence, are the two things people photograph.

Fifteenth and sixteenth century: Botticelli to Pontormo

The painting rooms carry on with Paolo Uccello, two Botticelli Madonnas, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi, Fra Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo's Venus and Cupid, painted from a cartoon by Michelangelo. If you have already seen the Uffizi and its Botticelli rooms, these are the smaller works by the same hands; if you have not, they are a preview.

Department of Musical Instruments: Stradivari, Amati, Cristofori

The Department of Musical Instruments opened in 2001 and holds about fifty instruments from the Medici and Lorraine collections. Instruments by Stradivari, Amati and Bartolomeo Cristofori, the Medici court instrument-maker credited with inventing the piano, are the reason to go in. Listening stations play the instruments.

It is the quietest room in the building at any hour.

Side by side from both museums' official pages on 28 August 2026: price, hours, closed days, our time estimate and the one reason to choose each, so you can pick one if there is time for only one. The Uffizi page has its own hours, rooms and map.

Choose the Accademia if you have ninety minutes and want one thing you will remember. Choose the Uffizi if you have half a day and care about painting. If you want both in one day, book the Accademia for 08:15, walk the twelve minutes south to the Uffizi for an 11:00 slot, or let the small-group walking tour hold both reservations and one guide.

The Accademia is open Tuesday to Sunday from 08:15 to 18:50. Last admission is 18:10, and closing procedures start at 18:40, so the last useful slot is 17:30. The museum closes every Monday, on 1 January and on 25 December, with one special Monday opening on 6 April 2026, the day after Easter.

Free days in 2026 are the first Sunday of every month plus 25 April, 2 June and 4 November. No booking is possible on those days; you queue at the gate, and the museum's own warning applies at full strength.

The time needed is not stated by the museum. Our routing is one hour for David, the Prisoners and the Sabines, ninety minutes with the casts, the paintings and the instruments.

• Emptiest: the 08:15 slot, or after 17:00
• Busiest: 10:00–15:00 any day; free Sundays all day
• Last admission 18:10; closing procedures from 18:40

There is no cloakroom. Large bags, backpacks and helmets are refused at the door, and water bottles are limited to 0.5 litres. Luggage storage is available at the MyAccademia store outside; a small handbag goes through security without trouble. Groups of six or more must use headsets, and a group is capped at twenty people plus the guide.

The entrance and ticket office are step-free from Via Ricasoli 60, a lift reaches the upper floor, and every open hall is wheelchair accessible. Toilets are on the ground floor near the lift and are reached only at the end of the route, so go before you enter.

The official audio guide costs €6 (about $7) at the bookshop against an ID document left as deposit. The timed-entry ticket with audio app includes an app version instead, and the one-hour guided tour replaces both with a person.

• No cloakroom: large bags, backpacks and helmets refused; water max 0.5 l
• Step-free entry at no. 60; lift to the upper floor
• Audio guide €6 against ID; headsets mandatory from 6 people; groups max 20 + guide

The address is Via Ricasoli 58/60, 50122 Firenze, five minutes north of the Duomo and two minutes from Piazza San Marco. From the cathedral walk up Via Ricasoli with the dome behind you; the queue on the left pavement marks the door. The accessible entrance is at number 60.

From Santa Maria Novella station it is about fifteen minutes on foot via Via de' Panzani and Via de' Cerretani to the Duomo, then Via Ricasoli. An urban bus or tram ticket costs €2 and is valid for 90 minutes from 1 August 2026; the nearest stops are on Piazza San Marco.

The centre is a ZTL: no unauthorised cars Monday to Friday 07:30–20:00 and Saturday 07:30–16:00. Park at a ring-road garage and walk.

Take the 08:15 slot, be out by 09:45, and the Duomo, the Medici Chapels and the Bargello are all within eight minutes on foot. The three-day Florence itinerary puts David on the second morning for exactly this reason, and the Florence attractions list ranks everything else by time needed. The other state and civic museums with hours, prices and maps are on the museums page.

The Florence city guide homepage links every district and day trip.