The Hall of Geographical Maps or "Guardaroba" was an ambitious room that set out to represent the known world of the 16th century through the display of a collection of artifacts and murals of cartography, all seen in relation to scientific instruments of time and astronomy. For various reasons, it was not seen to completion, yet the accounts of Giorgio Vasari, the room's designer, detail the proposed purpose and visualisation of the space. The Guardaroba was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany during his major reconstruction of the interior of the Palazzo. Construction of the "guardaroba" began in 1563.