The Uffizi’s hidden Medici passageway has opened to the public for the first time following an eight-year restoration. Florence's Vasari Corridor, a 750-meter-long elevated passageway that connects the Uffizi Galleries to the Pitti Palace, officially reopened on Saturday (21 December) after a monumental eight-year restoration project costing €11 million. For the first time ever, the public is now able to walk through the secretive corridor that once served as a private route for Florence’s ruling Medici family and Europe’s elite.
Commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1565, the Vasari Corridor was designed to serve multiple purposes. Not only did it allow the Medici to travel in privacy between their government offices at the Uffizi and their residence at the Pitti Palace, but it also shielded them from the crowds below and any potential threats. The corridor’s design is as much about secrecy as it is about grandeur: with 73 small windows lining the route, it provided breathtaking views of Florence and allowed the Medici to keep a watchful eye on the city without stepping out into the public sphere.
Over the centuries, the corridor became a space reserved only for the privileged. Throughout history, it has been walked by artists, politicians, and even dictators. In 1938, Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini took Adolf Hitler on a private tour of the corridor.
For most of the 20th century, the passageway remained closed to the public, and was only opened for sel.