Overview
Located on the ground floor and at the mezzanine of Palazzo Pitti, the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, formerly known as the "Silver Museum", houses the spaces of the Summer Apartment of the Medici family, decorated on the occasion of the marriage between Ferdinand II de' Medici and Vittoria della Rovere (1637). The structure is custodian of a grand ducal treasure of jewels, vases, plates and other furnishings in gold, silver, pearls, precious stones, hard stones, ivory, amber. Among the most valuable objects are the vases of Lorenzo the Magnificent and those with characteristic shapes of the late sixteenth century, the sixteenth-century jewels of Anna Maria Ludovica, the last descendant of the Medici, the ancient and Renaissance cameos, as well as the treasure of the bishops of Salzburg transported to Florence by Ferdinand III of Lorraine in 1815. The Museum also includes a significant collection of jewelry made between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries by European and Italian manufacturers, as well as a section dedicated to contemporary jewelry that attests to the vitality of the place. The Scalabrino donation, a collection of ancient oriental porcelains and European majolicas inspired by Asian models, reinforced the collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelains initially accumulated by the Medici four centuries ago.
