Uffizi unveils new 17th-century painting galleries with period-inspired red walls

The Uffizi Galleries in Florence have completed a major rehang of eight rooms on the first floor of the Levante wing, showcasing 17th-century masterpieces and Caravaggio works in a renewed setting. The new color scheme features a "decisive but slightly filtered" red derived from a 17th-century textile model and made with natural pigments used at the time. The thematic layout includes rooms titled "Between Reality and Magic," "Caravaggio and Artemisia," "Caravaggio: The Medusa," "Caravaggio: The Bacchus," "Night Light," "Rembrandt and Rubens," "Galileo and the Medici," and "Florentine Epic." The project was overseen by director Eike Schmidt, with curators Anna Bisceglia, Francesca de Luca, and Maria Matilde Simari. Architects Antonio Godoli and Nicola Santini designed the museography and lighting, reopening lunette windows to blend natural and artificial light. The red accents appear on independent panels detached from walls, while rooms facing the Uffizi square feature painted panels creating autonomous spaces. Funding came from Amici degli Uffizi and Friends of the Uffizi. The rehang follows the recent inauguration of the Giorgio Vasari Auditorium and aims to create an intellectual experience for both specialists and non-specialists by juxtaposing Florentine, Italian, and transalpine paintings, recovering the international spirit of the Medici collections.