Louvre v Uffizi: The ultimate showdown of mighty European museums

Which cultural superstar is for you - the home of the Mona Lisa in Paris or the Florentine treasure house of Renaissance art? Our experts help you decide.

By Amy Cooper

If you're proper A-list, the Louvre is the only place to hang. Just ask the Mona Lisa. Art's greatest celebrity is also its most prominent Florentine - but you won't find her at Florence's Uffizi, or indeed anywhere in Italy. Leonardo Da Vinci's smirking superstar calls Paris home. This tends to annoy the Italians, who even kidnapped her from the Louvre in 1911 and still moan that Mona should be back home. George Clooney says so too, but who cares? He's nowhere near as famous. If he was, then he too would be displayed behind bulletproof glass (and soon to have her own room) at the world's largest museum, visited by 30,000 adoring fans a day.

You need serious star power to headline at the Louvre. We're talking Venus de Milo, the Great Sphinx of Tanis, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Cupid and Psyche, Milo of Croton.

We're talking Beyonce.

The only celeb as big as the Mona Lisa is also crazy in Louvre with the mother of all museums. Bey and hubby Jay-Z shot their 2018 APES*T video there, rapping about Lambos and diamonds next to Mona and friends. You can take an official Beyonce and Jay-Z's Highlights trail around the 17 exhibits in the video. Eat your art out, George.

Sure, people gripe about the crowds and selfie sticks, but this is art on a stadium scale. It's blockbuster stuff. You wouldn't expect peace and elbow room at Super Bowl. Approach the Louvre thus, and you'll ride a euphoric wave of art-induced awe across 9000 years of human creativity from Neolithic statues and ancient Egyptian antiquities through Medieval, Renaissance and Romantics to the 21-metre glass pyramid entrance by IM Pei, added in 1989. There are 35,000 items on display in 72,735 sq m of exhibition space, and almost 20 times as many in the vaults.

And here's something else to infuriate the Florentines. The Louvre boasts the world's largest collection of Leonardo da Vinci works: five paintings and 22 drawings from Florence's finest son, compared to the Uffizi's meagre two (of which one is unfinished). While the Uffizi does Italian Renaissance and little else, you can take in an essential playlist of that period in the Louvre Grande Galerie's 300-strong line-up of Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo and more, then roam many more centuries and countries beneath the same roof.

And what a roof it is. The Louvre Palace adorns 40 hectares by the Seine, its pavilions, courtyards and halls as glorious as the art within. From 12th-century fortress to royal residence to people's museum birthed by the French Revolution, it's as venerable and storied as Paris itself. The City of Light, shimmering with beauty and romance, is reason alone to visit the Louvre. Go for the art, stay for Europe's most enchanting city. As someone (not Beyonce) once said: Paris is always a good idea.

By Mal Chenu

Europe's museums and art galleries never disappoint. Unless you queue for hours to "see" the Mona Lisa over the selfie sticks of the craning, gullible hordes at the Louvre. Da Vinci's enigmatically smirking Sheila always ranks highly on "Most Disappointing Travel Attractions" lists. This is largely because Mona is small. At 77cm x 53cm, she is barely the size of a Trumpian executive order folder and is just as hard to comprehend from a distance.

By contrast, Galleria degli Uffizi's most famous resident, The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, is a hefty 173cm x 279cm, so there is plenty of love goddess for everybody. Sandro's other revered piece Primavera measures 202cm x 314cm and both works are displayed in Uffizi's dedicated Botticelli Rooms.

(If size really matters, Michelangelo's 5.2-metre statue of David is just down the via at Galleria dell'Accademia).

The original buildings of the Uffizi complex were constructed between 1560 and 1581 to house Florence's administrative staff. (Uffizi means "offices" in Italian). Even then the top floor was reserved as a gallery containing Roman sculptures. The Uffizi buildings and a substantial chunk of the virtuosity within are down to the House of Medici, the famiglia responsible for much of Italy's world-changing Renaissance art and architecture. Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici may sound like an Australian Open quarter-finalist, but she was actually the last of the Medicis. When she died in 1743, she bequeathed three centuries' worth of Medicean treasures to the city on the condition they remain in Tuscany. It's said this act ensured Florence's economic prosperity forever.

The Uffizi balcony reveals more architectural masterpieces with views of Giotto's bell tower and the imposing Duomo. And that's just for starters. Indeed, La Bella Firenze is one massive masterpiece - a city of such sublime beauty that you want to weep and gesture wildly with your hands while singing its praises.

Galleria degli Uffizi is as Italian as Ferrari, Gucci and Nutella, and its glorious cortile, porticos, halls and columns are right out of Italian modo magnifico central casting. The Louvre, by comparison, is just window dressing.