The Vasari Corridor

(This is part of our series of posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025. We have an index to all the posts from that trip here.)

Early in our stay in Florence, we had booked one of the coveted time slots for a walk through the Corridoio Vasariano, an elevated, enclosed passageway that connects the Palazzo Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti. In 1565, the Medici family had court architect Giorgio Vasari build the 750-meter-long corridor so they could walk between their residence and the seat of government undisturbed and without running risks to their safety.

The Corridor’s unique route passes through the Uffizi Gallery, over the Ponte Vecchio, and through a church, offering panoramic views of Florence. The Corridor reopened to visitors in late 2024 after many years of restoration work.

Although the Vasari Corridor originally began in the Palazzo Vecchio, the restored section of the Corridor now begins at this decorated stairway in the Uffizi Galleries.

This was the view out the window as we crossed the Lungarno degli Archibusieri (the street along the Arno River) at the start of the Vasari Corridor. The Uffizi is on the right side of the street, while the elevated section of the Corridor that Vasari built along the edge of the Arno is on the left.

Iron grates, set outward from the walls of the Corridor, allowed the Medicis to look outward and downward at the River Arno as they transited the Corridor.

View of the up-river (east) side of the Ponte Vecchio from the Vasari Corridor.

After the recent renovation, the section of the Vasari Corridor over the Ponte Vecchio is being filled with statuary that will soon be revealed for visitors to enjoy.

The iron gratings on the windows in the Ponte Vecchio section of the Corridor allowed the Medicis to look down on the people and shops on the bridge while remaining safely above the crowds.

Looking east up the Arno toward the Ponte alle Grazie from the Vasari Corridor on the Ponte Vecchio. The section of the Corridor between the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio is visible at left.

View from the Vasari Corridor over the crowds in the middle of the Ponte Vecchio, looking west down the Arno toward Ponte Santa Trinita.

After crossing the Arno, the Vasari Corridor passes through the façade of Chiesa Santa Felicita (Church of San Felicity), the second-oldest Roman Catholic church in Florence after San Lorenzo. From a window in the Corridor overlooking this balcony, the Grand Dukes of the Medici family used to listen to the mass without being seen by the people staying at ground level.

The Vasari Corridor ends in the Boboli Gardens near the Palazzo Pitti, where the Medici family lived at the time.

The Buontalenti Grotto is adjacent to the exit from the Vasari Corridor in the Boboli Gardens. It was originally conceived by Giorgio Vasari, but later substantially remodeled and decorated by architect Bernardo Buontalenti (for whom it is named).

Between 1586 and 1587, artist Bernardino Poccetti painted the walls and ceilings of the Buontalenti Grotto.

As we left the Boboli Gardens through the Pitti Palace and made our way back into Florence’s Centro Storico, we could clearly see the outside of the Vasari Corridor along the facade of Chiesa Santa Felicita. We had actually walked past this spot many times–we would pass through the arch on the left to get to our apartment from the Santo Spirito area–but we had never realized there was a church there or that we were walking beneath part of the famous Vasari Corridor!

Waking toward the Ponte Vecchio to cross the Arno, we could see the three large rectangular windows in the Vasari Corridor (near the bottom left corner of the photo) from which we had looked down on the crowds, as well as the section of the Corridor that wraps around the outside of the medieval tower on the end of the bridge (center of the photo). Back when Vasari was building the Corridor, the owner of the tower refused to give his permission for the construction to pass through his building, so Vasari just cantilevered a walkway around it instead.