Palazzo Davanzati, Gothic palace and house museum in Florence, Italy
Palazzo Davanzati is a Gothic palace and house museum in Florence featuring a sandstone facade with three large portals and three stories of mullioned windows. The building preserves the living spaces and daily life of a wealthy family through furniture, ceramics, and household items displayed throughout its rooms.
The palace was built around 1400 by the Davizzi family, wealthy wool merchants, and served different owners as a residence for centuries. It was declared a state museum in 1951, preserving it as a record of urban living during that period.
The palace reveals how wealthy Florentine families lived during the medieval and Renaissance periods, filled with furniture and artworks that decorated their everyday rooms. The Sala dei Pappagalli with its painted walls shows visitors how these homes actually looked and how people moved through their spaces.
The museum is spread across three floors and visitors can explore the rooms independently or join guided tours to understand the history and furnishings better. It helps to take time on each floor to fully grasp the details of the rooms and collections.
On the second floor sits the bedroom of the Chatelain of Vergy, whose walls are painted with frescoes telling a medieval French love story. These wall paintings are unusual because they depict a foreign literary work inside an Italian residential home.
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