The Gallery is housed in the building built by Cosimo I of Medici and designed by Vasari in 1560. But the collection was started in 1574 when Cosimo's son, Francesco I, transformed the second floor of the Vasarian building into a place 'to walk in with paintings, sculptures and other precious things' and entrusted Buontalenti with the creation of a Tribune where art objects could be exhibited.
Vasari, who died that same year, could hardly have imagined that inside that building, born to house the Magistracy, almost all the major painters (not just Florentine) whose biographies he had written in one of the most interesting documents on the history of art, Lives, would have been on show.
It was based on an idea of Vasari, who had put the portrait of each artist with his biography, that Leopoldo de'Medici started the rich collection of artists' self-portraits. This kept on growing over the centuries with a further 250 self-portraits arriving in the 20th century, often gifts from the artists themselves. Like Chagall who went to Florence himself to hand over his portrait.
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