The Uffizi Galleries began in 1560 as offices for Florence's bureaucrats. Giorgio Vasari designed the U-shaped complex to consolidate Cosimo I de' Medici's administrative control, hence uffizi, Italian for offices. The top floor stayed empty until Francesco I, Cosimo's son, commissioned architect Bernardo Buontalenti to transform it into a private gallery. No stairs connected the galleries to the ground floor until the 18th century. The Medici accessed their treasures through a walkway from Palazzo Vecchio.

Buontalenti's octagonal Tribuna became the collection's jewel box in 1584. Its dome holds 5,780 mother-of-pearl shells shipped from the Indian Ocean, set against scarlet varnish made from millions of crushed cochineal insects. The floor represents earth with inlaid marble from conquered territories. Red velvet walls symbolise fire. The lantern at the top works as both sundial and weather vane.
Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici saved it all in 1737. The last Medici heir signed the Family Pact stipulating the collections could never leave Florence. The galleries opened to the public in 1769.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace how Vasari's architectural illusions extend Florence's piazzas into the building's perspective, explain the Tribuna's alchemical symbolism reflecting Francesco I's esoteric interests, decode Renaissance masterpieces from Giotto's naturalism through Botticelli's mythological mysteries, and reveal how three centuries of Medici collecting transformed government offices into the first modern museum.