The Vasari Corridor
ATTENTION!! - At the end of December the Vasari Corridor will be closed in order to perform the impressive restoration works that are supposed to last 3 years.
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The Vasari corridor (simply known as "the Vasarian") is without any doubts one of the attractions that most fascinate me and has of course, the same influence over the tourists coming to Florence.
It is a very particular path that begins within the Uffizi Gallery and ends in the Boboli Garden, in the cave of Buontalenti, but it is not always open to the public: you have to request a reservation in advance. Here are allowed (except rare exceptions) guided tours only in order to protect the works of art, because its tight corridor doesn’t allow too many people walking through at the same time. Because of this difficulty to access and for many other reasons the Vasariano is wrapped up in a kind of mysterious halo…… But, after all, what is the Vasari Corridor? Well, I'm not an expert of Renaissance art, then I will try to explain it as simply as I can, and that’s the same way with whom even I have known and appreciated it. Well, let's suppose that you are one of the Medici, a member of the famous family that "ruled" in Florence in the middle of the 16th Century, and you want to move quickly from the offices where you use to work (oh well, let’s say “work”, but still these are the current rooms of whom the Uffizi Gallery is formed, so you also can understand where the name “Uffizi” comes from) towards the “little cottage” you constructed on the other side of the Arno river……. The Pitti Palace!
What you said? Better the second option? I agree, you only need to bring the surname Medici, to have then a lot of money and to give orders to a certain architect Giorgio Vasari, which incidentally has already put his signature on the Uffizi Gallery. After all, we are talking about a long tunnel of nearly 2 kilometers, which is located at the second floor of all palaces standing between the Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace; despite all this, it took only 5 months to the Vasari to build it, perhaps also because he was heavily threatened by the Grand Duke Cosimo The 1st, who commissioned the works to coincide with the marriage between his own son Francesco and Giovanna of Austria.
Currently the Vasari corridor is part of the Uffizi Gallery and inside it you can admire a huge collection of self-portraits and portraits all dated between the 17th and the 18th century, but more that the beautiful paintings themselves, it is the passage to be really magical and to be worthy your visit, far more than many other places of Florence, can you figure it out?
You will walk where only the members of the Grand Ducal family could have access! Just think about that the Medici attended even to masses directly by Vasari corridor, since just past the Arno it overlooks the Loggia of Santa Felicita church, and standing on a balcony they could listen to sermons without melting with common people… they were really posh!
Curious Facts- Hard to believe, but anciently the Ponte Vecchio didn’t housed as in the present all those beautiful artisan goldsmith shops, but the market of meat! However, the poor butchers had to move to prevent that the Grand Duke felt bad smells when he walked in the Vasari Corridor.- The Corridor makes a strange detour at one extremity of the Ponte Vecchio where the De ' Mannelli Tower stands: it doesn’t proceed straight there but it passes around the building because at that time the owners of the tower opposed its demolition!! - The large windows that open towards Santa Trinita bridge were made in 1939 on behalf by none other than Benito Mussolini; he ordered their construction because that year he would have met Adolf Hitler right inside of Vasari Corridor and he believed that the small Renaissance portholes didn’t make justice to the landscape. It is said that this visit was so appreciated by the Führer that perhaps, it was the only reason why he saved the bridge from destruction, unlike all the others that were destroyed after World War II bombardments. ATTENTION!
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