The great palace built for the Florentine banker Luca Pitti dominating the Oltrarno quarter is attributed to a design by Filippo Brunelleschi.
For a period of four centuries, the palace was built around the original central body formed by seven windows on two floors.
Formerly the palace of the Medici, Lorraine and Savoy dynasties, it was not until modern times that the building was used to house the prestigious collections of the Palatine Gallery, the Silver Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art.
Cosimo I, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, bought the original building and commissioned Bartolomeo Ammannati with adding two wings and a gallery forming a magnificent courtyard.

For three centuries - until the annexation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to the Kingdom of Italy in 1859 - the palace was the backdrop to the most important events in the life of the Medici family, and, from 1736, onwards, in the life of the Habsburg-Lorraine family.
The most important part of the Palatine Gallery is housed in the six front rooms of the Pitti Palace, and in the back rooms, which were used as the winter quarters in the north wing by the Medici Grand Dukes.
After being abandoned, these rooms were used from the late 18th century onwards for the exhibition of the most important paintings (then around 500 in number) present in the Pitti Palace, most of which originating from the Medici family collections.