Gallery of Costume, Fashion museum in Pitti Palace, Florence, Italy
The Gallery of Costume is a fashion museum within Pitti Palace that houses approximately 6,000 garments and accessories from the 16th through 20th centuries. The collection occupies the Palazzina della Meridiana building and documents how clothing styles and construction methods evolved across multiple historical periods.
The Costume Gallery was founded in 1983 under Kristen Aschengreen Piacenti, initially housed in the Palazzina della Meridiana, a pavilion built from 1776 by Gaspare Paoletti and completed by Pasquale Poccianti. Its holdings include the funeral clothes of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, his wife Eleonora of Toledo and their son Garzia, who died of malaria at fifteen. The collection has grown through public and private donations, including entire wardrobes such as that of Sicilian noblewoman Franca Fiorio and actress Eleonora Duse.
The collection reveals how people from different time periods valued clothing and expressed themselves through what they wore. By looking at the garments on display, you can see how craftsmanship and taste changed across centuries and social classes.
The gallery sits in the Palazzina della Meridiana, the pavilion on the south side of Pitti Palace, and is reached from the Boboli Gardens; the same ticket covers the gardens. Access is allowed at fixed times. Because the garments are fragile, the display rotates at least every two years along a chronological and thematic route.
The Palazzina della Meridiana, the museum's home, was built from 1776 for Peter Leopold of Lorraine; Gaspare Paoletti began the work, Pasquale Poccianti finished it and built the south facade. Reopened in 2007 after more than a century, it lets visitors see the meridian line made by Vincenzo Viviani and frescoes painted by Anton Domenico Gabbiani for Grand Prince Ferdinando.
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