Seven museums, a collection of 50,632 artistic artefacts – including sculptures, paintings, tapestries, ivories, jewellery, majolica, medals, coins, textiles, musical instruments, furnishings and ancient weapons – covering a total exhibition area of 18,610 square metres and the richest and most significant collection of works by Michelangelo Buonarroti in the world. With a total attendance of over 3 million visitors in 2025, the newly created museum system of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze e Musei del Bargello is one of the most complex and important in Italy and beyond. A unique heritage, now enhanced by coordinated management and a shared cultural vision.

Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Museo delle Cappelle Medicee, Museo di Palazzo Davanzati, Complesso di Orsanmichele, Museo di Casa Martelli and, once the work is completed, the former church of San Procolo: seven places, seven stories, a single cultural identity, which, under the guidance of the new director Andreina Contessa, are embarking on a new season.

A journey through the city that can be imagined as a constellation: a symbolic map that unites different realities, recounts connections, directions and correspondences, and interprets the territory through its heritage.

The internal reorganisation includes important interventions and innovations, already underway: restoration and refurbishment projects; definition of a new strategy through the creation of thematic itineraries, unified tickets and opening hours, and an ever-increasing focus on visitors, from the youngest to special audiences, with the aim of enhancing the identity of each museum and strengthening the dialogue between the collections.

I believe – explains General Director Andreina Contessa – that this union between two great institutions represents a challenge and an opportunity for both. Visitors will be able to enjoy a museum, architectural and artistic experience that is unique in the world, spread across different buildings in the city, a journey through the different historical periods of Florence and its different faces.

The union, strengthen through several projects such as integrated ticketing and standardised opening hours, will lead to a rebalancing of visitor flows and economic resources.

The cultural strategy consists of highlighting the unique characteristics of each museum by placing them in relation to one another. This new institute is now the preferred location for research, the history of collecting, the creative process of sculpture that leads to the creation of the work, and the materiality of art in all its applications, capable of creating a new urban itinerary that allows visitors to enjoy historical sites and masterpieces created by genius and talent expressed in art.

We want to give these highly attractive places back to the Florentines, developing initiatives and special openings for citizens and emphasising the role of museums in serving the community and the culture to which they belong. At the same time, we must consider implementing a comprehensive awareness campaign to inform visitors of sustainable behaviour in the context of cultural heritage and conservation issues. I know from experience that mergers can be great opportunities, but they are never easy.

The institution of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze e Musei del Bargello as a unique entity will involve a complex change from a management and administrative point of view. That is why I began my tenure in Florence by meeting with the staff: listening is essential to understanding needs and perspectives. It is also because it is from the voices of those who experience the museum every day that the profound sense of a cultural community capable of innovating, growing and speaking to the world is born.

Single ticket and unified opening hours

The first major change concerns the creation of two combined tickets which, starting on 15 March 2026, will allow visitors to visit all the museums in the group with a single ticket valid for 72 hours, at a cost of € 38.00. For € 26.00, visitors will be able to access the Galleria dell’Accademia and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello within 48 hours.

The introduction of a family ticket is also being considered, designed to facilitate access to museums for families and encourage shared enjoyment of heritage.

Tickets for individual museums will undergo minor changes starting 1 February. The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze will increase from € 16.00 to € 20.00, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello from € 10.00 to € 12.00, the Museo di Palazzo Davanzati from € 6.00 to € 8.00, the Museo delle Cappelle Medicee from € 9.00 to € 11.00 (excluding Michelangelo’s Secret Room, whose price will remain € 32.00, unchanged from the past, as will the obligation to book) and the Orsanmichele Complex from € 8.00 to € 10.00. Admission to the Museo di Casa Martelli remains free on the two days it is open, Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning, but a paid ticket is expected to be introduced in the future. Reduced tickets and free admission as provided for by law also remain unchanged.

All tickets can be purchased through the official channel authorised by the MiC, managed by the concessionaire Giunti-Opera Laboratori via the booking centre on the following telephone number: +39 055 294883 and the B-Ticket online ticket office on the official websites https://www.galleriaaccademiafirenze.it/tickets/ – https://bargellomusei.it/biglietti/

And goodbye to different opening hours: from 15 March, Tuesday to Sunday, all museums will be open from 8.15 a.m. to 6.50 p.m. (except for Casa Martelli, whose opening hours will depend on the various construction sites that are starting there).

Experiential itineraries

Three new cross-cutting thematic itineraries, designed by the museum system’s scientific team, will link different works and venues, offering the public a comprehensive and innovative view of the heritage. The itineraries will be implemented in May 2026, after the training course developed by the staff, in particular the art historians of the various museum venues, who will work in close collaboration with the various offices of the institution.

It opens with NEL SEGNO DEL GENIO. Michelangelo and the technical, iconographic, symbolic and poetic innovations of his works. Divided into three stages, the project explores the figure and work of Michelangelo Buonarroti through some of his most famous Florentine masterpieces, allowing visitors to follow his evolution and understand his revolutionary impact on Renaissance art. From the youthful Bacchus to the Pitti Tondo, from David-Apollo to the ideal portrait of Brutus at the Bargello National Museum, to the famous David, the Prigioni, San Matteo and the Pietà di Palestrina preserved at the Galleria dell’Accademia, the radical innovations introduced by the artist in the iconography, techniques and meanings of sculpture emerge, including his famous use of the unfinished. The tour ends at the Cappelle Medicee, in the Sagrestia Nuova of San Lorenzo, where Michelangelo blends sculpture and architecture in the funeral monuments of Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici, animated by the allegories of Day, Night, Dawn and Dusk, offering a profound reflection on time and the transience of life.

The second, FLORENCE AND ITS SYMBOLS. The visual identity of the city told through heraldry, civic religion, allegorical figures, heroes of classical mythology and sacred history, develops from the Orsanmichele Complex to the Museo Nazionale del Bargello and on to the Galleria dell’Accademia. The itinerary focuses on the meaning, symbolic value and communicative power of the images, beyond their artistic value and technical execution, and addresses themes such as the city and its patron saints, Orsanmichele and the Arts, ancient and modern heroes, symbols and painted Florence. A different perspective on works of art that become tools for recounting civic identity, in relation to the places and signs that have contributed to building the Florentine collective imagination.

This first cycle concludes with L’ARTE DEL DETTAGLIO (The Art of Detail). A journey to discover objects, clothing, fabrics and accessories, both real and represented, in the collections of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze e Musei del Bargello. A tour of four locations, starting from the Galleria and the Bargello, leading to the treasures of Palazzo Davanzati and Casa Martelli. Dedicated to the history of clothing as an expression of culture, exchange and identity, it accompanies visitors through different eras and languages, from the Middle Ages to the modern age, bringing together works and artefacts, fabrics, embroidery and ornaments preserved in the collections. From the sumptuous robes of the Empress of Constantinople on an ivory panel in the Museo del Bargello to the refined dresses of 15th-century ladies on the Cassone Adimari in the Galleria dell’Accademia, from the fabrics of the East featured in 14th-century paintings to tapestries and refined examples of applied arts, fashion reveals itself to be a mirror of past societies, a vehicle for messages and rituals, providing a concrete and engaging account of history.

INAUGURATION OF THE MARTELLI FAMILY COAT OF ARMS AFTER ITS RETURN TO ITS ORIGINAL HOME

The large coat of arms with the golden griffin on a red field, symbol of the Florentine family, once again stands out at the top of the monumental staircase of Casa Martelli. From 1998 (the year in which the residence officially became part of the large family of Italian state museums) until autumn 2024, it was on display in the Salone di Donatello of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello.

The monumental polychrome stone sculpture depicts a shield with a horse’s head and rays, bearing the family’s heraldic symbol. The shield hangs from a sash around the neck of a bearer with a strongly pathetic expression.

The coat of arms – 1.93 metres high, 77 centimetres wide and weighing 420 kilograms – was created for the exterior façade of one of the buildings located in Via degli Spadai (now Via Martelli), where the main branch of the family had resided since the end of the 14th century. Historically, it has been attributed to Donatello in his later years. Recent studies support the attribution to Desiderio da Settignano.

Recorded among the notable features of Via Larga in descriptions from the 17th and 18th centuries, in 1799 it was removed and transferred to the building in Via della Forca (now Via Zannetti) to protect it from the removal of monumental coats of arms by the Napoleonic revolutionary government.

With the relocation of the coat of arms to the Museo di Casa Martelli, the collection regains one of the pieces that made the family’s collecting activities famous when, in the fifteenth century, it consolidated its status thanks to a political and commercial alliance with the Medici, with whom it shared the perception of art’s potential as an expression of social prestige and a vehicle for political meanings.

NEW PROJECTS

Reorganisation of the Michelangelo Room and the entrance to the Bargello National Museum

In 2026, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello will undergo a major renovation and redesign of its entrance, which will involve a series of refurbishment works affecting the entire entrance area, the ticket office, the courtyard and the adjacent Sala di Michelangelo. Located on the ground floor and overlooking the courtyard, the hall belongs to the oldest part of the building and originally served as an entrance hall, hosting the soldiers and heralds in the service of the Podestà.

Characterised by lowered cross vaults and sturdy stone pillars that divide the room into two naves, it now houses famous marble works by Buonarroti alongside masterpieces by the leading masters of 16th-century Florence, including Giambologna, Benvenuto Cellini, Bartolomeo Ammannati and Baccio Bandinelli – for a total of 54 works, including sculptures in marble, bronze and terracotta.

The sculptures, from the collections of the Uffizi Gallery, the grand ducal residences and the Boboli Gardens, were transferred here following the establishment of the Museo Nazionale del Palazzo del Bargello  in 1865. After being exhibited in various rooms of the museum between the 19th and 20th centuries, they found their permanent home in the current room in 1975. Their location on the ground floor, in a space that dialogues with the city through large windows, creates an evocative visual relationship between the works and the urban context.

The main protagonists are Michelangelo’s four masterpieces, representative of different phases of his career and his renewed interest in models and genres such as ancient statuary, with Bacchus, the fifteenth-century series of marble tondi with Marian iconography, the Pitti Tondo, together with David-Apollo and Brutus. From this nucleus, a journey unfolds through the highest achievements of 16th-century sculpture on religious and secular subjects, from Bartolomeo Ammannati’s funerary statuary – such as the statues of the unfinished Nari della Santissima Annunziata monument – to the mythological themes of Narcissus and Ganymede interpreted by Benvenuto Cellini. The itinerary is completed by the serpentine figure of Giambologna’s monumental bronze Mercury, from Villa Medici in Rome.

In addition to the restoration and new layout of the Michelangelo Room, the plan of activities at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello includes work on the Verone, loggia, courtyard and external staircase, the renovation of the ticket office and the upgrading of the lighting and air conditioning systems.

Restorations in progress and planned

Among the new projects that will soon begin at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello are the restoration of the base of Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus (marble base and four bronze statuettes, with live construction in the halls, scheduled to begin in March 2026) and that of Valerio Cioli’s Satyr with Flask and Giambologna’s Putto Fishing, both bronze sculptures located in Verone, which are also affected by a construction site open to the public (scheduled to begin in April 2026).

The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze will also undergo a series of restorations of works in its collection. Some work is currently underway, including the restoration of four painted panels: Madonna and Child, Four Angels and Saints by Spinello Aretino (expected completion 16 February 2026), the Diptych of St Pancrazio by Bernardo Daddi (due to be completed in February/March 2026), the Madonna and Child with Saints Anthony the Abbot, Peter, Julian and John the Baptist by the Maestro del 1416 (due to be completed in April 2026) and the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels by the same Maestro (due to be completed in July 2026). The programme also includes the refurbishment of Room 4 on the first floor, which is to become a “visitable storage area” and a space dedicated to study, accompanied by an inspection of all the works stored there and subsequent targeted maintenance.

At the Museo delle Cappelle Medicee , the entrance and visitor reception area is to be refurbished. New operations include the complex dust removal from the polychrome marbles of the Chapel of the Princes (beginning of March 2026), the cleaning of the two colossal bronze portraits of Ferdinando I and Cosimo II by Pietro and Ferdinando Tacca, and the consolidation and restoration of the dome and interior furnishings of Michelangelo’s Sagrestia Nuova.

In the Orsanmichele Complex, plans are underway to restore the ancient stained glass windows of the church and the large windows of the museum. A two-year project has also been launched to conduct scientific research and conservation work on the active corrosion affecting the museum’s bronze sculptures.

At the Museo di Casa Martelli, following the relocation of the Martelli coat of arms, work is underway to restore the monumental rooms on the second and third floors, improve energy efficiency (National Recovery Plan) by replacing the fixtures and restoring the historic ones, as well as the visible storage areas. New operations also include the restoration – and partial replacement – of fabrics and wall coverings in the Quadreria rooms, the restoration of upholstery fabrics, the restoration of frescoes in six rooms on the ground floor, and the restoration and renovation of faux Palladian painted floors.

Finally, work continues on the former Church of San Procolo, including the energy efficiency of the entire structure and the restoration of the large painted altarpieces, which will see the space, once all the work has been completed, officially become part of the large museum system of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze e Musei del Bargello.

To complete the programme, a significant upgrade of the routine maintenance plan is planned: dust removal activities throughout the entire heritage site will be increased.

The interventions will be continuous and scheduled according to pre-established cycles, with a comprehensive review of timings, operating methods and planning.

Educational activities

The museum system confirms and expands a comprehensive programme of educational and inclusion activities aimed at schools, families and special audiences, with the aim of broadening access to heritage and promoting a participatory museum experience. For schools, there will be music workshops in collaboration with the Centro Studi Arte & Musica, courses on ancient instruments, itineraries dedicated to the history of music and FSL–Formazione Scuola Lavoro programmes that accompany upper secondary school students in a career guidance experience within museums.

There is also an extensive calendar of accessibility initiatives, with guided tours in Italian Sign Language (LIS), tours for deaf, neurodivergent or dementia patients, activities for the over-65s, scheduled and on-demand tactile tours, and new digital tools such as video guides in International Sign Language (IS) and Italian Sign Language (LIS). The offer is completed by workshops and activities for families and children, ranging from the discovery of artistic techniques to the history of museums. This set of initiatives highlights the educational, inclusive and social role of museum institutions under the new management, which hopes to expand the initiatives by establishing new collaborations.