If you go to the Uffizi square and targe in the direction of the Arno on your right you will see after the construction site of the new Uffizi the door with the real post office. Once in that area there was a building where the famous gold “florin” was coined inside. But the architect Giorgio Vasari with extreme care in architectural details incorporated this structure in the Uffizi building creating a continuity of the entire body. As we subsequently know, the complex became the headquarters of the bureaucratic body of the new Grand Duke Cosimo I, but despite having passed several centuries, the function of the building as part of the Medici offices changed only in its new operational qualification.
The city of Florence that has become the capital of Italy needed all those offices and buildings necessary to make up for the various needs of the newlyhorn, and so it was that buildings and environments for the functions of the ministers and the various secretaries were reused. And precisely in that period that portion of Uffizi was chosen to host the new post office. Mariano Falcini was entrusted to the” Regie Fabbriche” Architect of the Royal Fabbrics the project to create a new architectural reality without removing anything from the Vasarian structure.
Between 1865 and 1866 he made in the courtyard used for the carriages of the carriages a large environment typical of the period with cast iron structure such as the columns that support the entire glass pavilion from which the light entered. The entrance of the Royal Posts is divided into two openings surmounted by the writing of the “real posts” in metal also by the shield with the Sabauda cross positioned centrally to the four shields made of strong stone of the four neighborhoods of Florence. The post office remained active until 1917 after a period of total abandonment returned in vogue in 1934 as a place used with new modern technologies to the restoration of works of art.
After a restoration intervention in 1988 the space was used for small exhibitions related to the Uffizi Gallery, which should be maintained in the project of the new Uffizi, we are waiting for confident. Small curiosity since we are talking about mail … the considerable increase in correspondence due to the status of capital, made it necessary to support the main post office of the succursals. Until April ’66 the stamps were obliterated by circle stamps with indication of the post office and date. From the following May these stamps were used in combination with the numerals with points that had the purpose of marked the stamp markedly, to avoid their fraudulent reuse.
Now after several years of restoration the postal office is reopened like a restaurant and will be possible to visit in the next future. If you want discover more about the city of Florence let us know, we are running a free tour of Florence, we are starting our tour from Santa Maria Novella square, in front of Minerva hotel. So book your tour with us and you will discover several secrets about this beautiful renaissance city.
