Sala di Saturno
These spaces provide an exceptional frame for the displayed works displayed here from the 16th to the 17th centuries. The Room of Saturn contains the largest number of works by Raphael, among them the Portrait of Agnolo Doni (1506) and of Maddalena Strozzi, the Vision of Ezekiel, the unfinished “Madonna del Baldacchino, the Portrait of Cardinal Dovizi and of Tommaso Inghirami and, the most famous, Madonna of the Chair.The Virgin is seated on an elegant chamber chair reserved for high dignitaries of the Papal court instead of on a throne and hugs the child affectionately.The palace, which houses several important museums, was built in the second half of the 15th century probably on a project of Filippo Brunelleschi for Luca Pitti, but was unfinished at his death in 1472. The original building, formed by two floors and the ground floors, with only five windows on each tloor, was purchased in 1550 by Eleonora da Toledo, the wife of the Grand Duke Cosimo I de'Medici, thus becoming the official residence of the family. For this reason it was widened and changed, in 1560 by Bartolomeo Ammannati and at the beginning of the 17th century by Giulio and Alfonso Parigi.