Corridoio Vasariano

An elevated passage runs across Florence, built in five months for a Medici wedding. The Vasari Corridor links Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti over the Ponte Vecchio.

Why it matters

The Corridoio Vasariano is architecture as power made visible. The Uffizi Galleries describe it as an exceptional aerial corridor, unique in the world, running from Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti above the Arno and the rooftops: the grand dukes could cross their city undisturbed, above the crowds, from the seat of government to their residence. Giorgio Vasari built it in 1565 with astonishing speed, and its route dictated the face of central Florence, crowding the Ponte Vecchio with the jewellers that replaced the butchers who once worked there.

What to notice

Seventy-three windows frame the passage. The Uffizi's own presentation singles them out as the way to enjoy the historic centre as Grand Duke Cosimo did in the later sixteenth century: framed views arrive in sequence, over the courtyard of the Uffizi, down the Arno, and then the celebrated passage over the Ponte Vecchio with peeped glimpses of the river through the shop roofs. The route narrates itself as it goes: it crosses private palaces, bypasses the medieval Mannelli Tower, whose owners refused to give it up, overlooks the church of Santa Felicita, where the Medici could hear Mass from on high, and ends by the Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens. The historic fabric was refurbished; the self-portrait collection hung here from the 1970s until 2016.

Context and history

Duke Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned the corridor in 1565 on the occasion of his son Francesco's wedding to Joanna of Austria, so the court could move safely between the government palace and the residence on the other side of the river. Giorgio Vasari's site organisation let the works finish in just five months, producing a passage of about 760 metres from its start at the Uffizi to its end at the Buontalenti Grotto. In modern times the corridor became a museum branch, and from the 1970s until its closure it housed the Uffizi's collection of artists' self-portraits, begun in the seventeenth century by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici.