Casa Martelli

Casa Martelli in 2026: closed for works until 31 December

Casa Martelli is closed to visitors from 10 March to 31 December 2026, for building works, so on a trip to Florence before the end of the year you won’t get in. The museum’s own site doesn’t give a reopening date for 2027 yet.

That’s also why Casa Martelli was left out when the Bargello museums, the state group that runs it, moved to a shared timetable on 15 March 2026. Older listings online still show visits on Thursday afternoons and on some Sunday mornings. The museum’s own site gives Tuesdays and Saturdays, and that’s the one to go by.

Casa Martelli tickets: free entry on a guided visit, booked by phone

There’s no ticket to buy for Casa Martelli. Entry is free, and you only go round on a guided visit led by the museum’s own staff, in small groups, so the one thing to sort out is a place on a visit.

You book that place by phone, and since the line only takes bookings a couple of visits ahead, in practice you ring once you’re in Florence and pick a time. Groups of up to 15 can book as well, and the museum’s site mentions no booking fee.

When Casa Martelli opens: Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings

Visits run on two days a week, each starting at a set time, and on the other five days the house stays shut. These are the times the museum’s site gives; it doesn’t say yet whether they’ll stay the same after the works.

For wheelchair users, the museum says it’s equipped for disabled access, while mobility scooters and electric wheelchairs are let in only in limited numbers, case by case. It’s worth mentioning when you call to book.

Casa Martelli and the Firenze Card

Casa Martelli is on the Firenze Card’s list of included museums. Entry is free for everyone anyway, so the card saves you nothing here. We haven’t found a separate way in for cardholders either, so you book by phone like any other visitor.

The card, €94 for 72 hours from your first entry, is built for Florence’s paid museums, and it comes out ahead from about five or six of them. With only the Uffizi and the Accademia it costs more than the two tickets, and our page on the Firenze Card and Florence’s other passes sets out what each pass covers.

Inside Casa Martelli: the woodland room, the reception rooms and the picture gallery

The visit starts on the ground floor, in the summer apartments the family had decorated in the early 19th century. Niccolò Contestabili painted one room as a woodland, with a romantic landscape around the walls and a bathtub decorated with ruins. Next to it is the winter garden, the bersò, where Gaetano Gucci painted a pergola in trompe-l’oeil, painting meant to trick your eye into seeing the real thing. From there an elegant staircase takes you up to the first floor.

Upstairs are the reception rooms, with ceilings painted by Vincenzo Meucci and Tommaso Gherardini, and the family’s own chapel sits at the centre of the palace.

The picture gallery is where to slow down. Look for Piero di Cosimo’s Adoration of the Child, a round painting in a heavy gilded frame, two panels by Beccafumi and two large canvases by Luca Giordano and Salvator Rosa. The ballroom is on the same floor.

The Martelli family and how Casa Martelli became a museum

The Martelli were a Florentine family tied to the Medici, the dynasty that ruled the city, through banking and a shared interest in the sciences and the arts. Ilarione di Bartolomeo Martelli bought the original building in 1524, and in 1738 a large remodelling under Bernardino Ciurini gave the palace the shape you walk through today.

One famous piece has left the house. The San Giovannino, a statue of the young St John the Baptist by Donatello, the Renaissance sculptor, stood in the palace with the big Martelli coat of arms, and both are now in the Bargello.

Finding Casa Martelli on Via Ferdinando Zannetti

Casa Martelli is at Via Ferdinando Zannetti 8, near the corner with Via Cerretani, halfway between the Duomo and the Medici Chapels. From Santa Maria Novella, Florence’s main railway station, it’s a 5 to 7-minute walk through the centre.