Uffizi Medici heiress. The Uffizi is one of the first modern museums. The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, and in 1765 it was officially opened to the public, formally becoming a museum in 1865. Today, the Uffizi is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Florence and one of the most visited art museums in the world. The building of Uffizi complex was begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I de' Medici so as to accommodate the offices of the Florentine magistrates, hence the name , "offices". The construction was later
New exit for the Uffizi Gallery structure and that of the Loggia del Grano (its historic complement that dominates the corner across the street)and "become an instrument for the museum to communicate with the city". The project for the new exit of the museum continues to be a sensitive subject for Florentines. The project has been at a stand-still since 2003 when it was originally intended to be unveiled. The debate over the loggia became both a political argument as well as an aesthetic one. Ruins below the Uffizi were discovered not long after excavations began which made the project even harder to realize due to