Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici as Flora

The girl dressed as Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, is Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, painted around 1680 by the Florentine artist Pietro Dandini when she was still a child. She was the daughter of the grand duke of Tuscany, and no one yet knew she would be the last of her line. The Medici had ruled Florence and gathered art for nearly three centuries, and when the family died out it could all have been carried off by whoever came next. In 1737, an old woman by then and the family's sole survivor, Anna Maria Luisa signed the agreement that kept every painting, statue and gem in Florence for good, on the condition that none of it ever leave the city. The Uffizi you can walk through today exists largely because of her decision. The child playing at being a goddess of spring grew up to guard the whole inheritance.