Maps depicting Renaissance Tuscany are back on display at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence after being hidden from public view for more than 20 years. The wall paintings were commissioned in the late 1500s by Ferdinando I de’ Medici after the republic of Florence’s conquering of its rival Siena led to the creation the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and depict the newly unified territory.

More than 1,200 cities and towns, whose names are written in gold, are featured in the three maps designed by the cartographer Stefano Bonsignori and painted by Ludovico Buti. The maps were the first large-scale representation of Tuscany and are displayed in the museum’s “hall of the geographical maps”, where the Italian director Dario Argento shot a scene from his 1996 film The Stendhal Syndrome, about the mysterious illness thought to strike visitors to Florence after they become overwhelmed by the beauty of the city’s artistic masterpieces.