The Vasari Corridor runs from the Uffizi and across the Ponte Vecchio.
The Vasari Corridor was built to connect the government offices of the Florentine Republic with the palace where the ruling Medici family lived. The elevated walkway leads from the Uffizi (the former government offices) over the Ponte Vecchio and all the way to the Palazzo Pitti, where the Medici family lived after they moved from the Palazzo Vecchio. It’s easy to miss the hallway altogether or assume it’s just an upper storey of a building or private office above a shop on the Ponte Vecchio. But this long hallway, designed by Giorgio Vasari and built in the 1560s, is a space unto itself.
The whole passage stretches for roughly 2/3 of a mile (almost one kilometer). Grand Duke Cosimo I commissioned it to ensure safe passage from home to work and back again. The building of the Vasari Corridor also led to the Ponte Vecchio’s association with jewelry shops. Prior to the passage’s construction, the Ponte Vecchio had been home to a meat market. The stench was unpleasant, to say the least, and would have been easy to smell from the elevated walkway — the meat vendors had to relocate, while gold merchants were invited to set up shop along the bridge.
Artwork lines the walls of the Vasari Corridor.
Today, the Vasari Corridor is almost an extension of the Uffizi Gallery, in that its walls are lined with self-portraits of artists such as Filippino Lippi, Raphael, Bernini and Rembrandt. The corridor is off-limits to the vast majority of visitors today, viewable only if you book a guided tour in advance.
But the new director of the Uffizi Gallery, which oversees operation of the passage, has plans to open it up to the public, as well as move the self-portraits out of the Vasari Corridor due to the inadequate climate control conditions in the walkway.
View from the Vasari Corridor
What this means for visitors is that, although there’s no date set right now for the Vasari Corridor’s public opening, its days as an exclusive attraction in Florence are numbered. If you want to experience the passage before it makes this transformation, be sure to book a tour soon.
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