Vasari Corridor
The Vasari corridor is not the most popular tourist destination in Italy, this is due to the difficulty of visiting and the rather high price that you will have to pay for sightseeing. Despite this, year after year, the covered gallery connecting Palazzo Vecchio with Palazzo Pitti attracts the attention of people from all over the world. This place houses about 700 paintings of the XVI-XVII centuries by Roman and Neapolitan masters, a unique collection of self-portraits by famous and great artists of Italy and the world up to the beginning of the XX century. The collection contains approximately 1,400 paintings in total.,
History of creation
The Vasari corridor looks unusual, it connects the old and new houses of the famous Medici family. The history of the indoor gallery began in the 16th century. At this time, the Duke of Tuscany decided to give his residence, which he shared with the government, to the government itself, moving to the house opposite. In order to reduce the time needed to move family members and the parliament and make their movement as secret as possible, Kazimo I ordered the construction of a special passage. But unlike traditional secret passages, this one was supposed to connect two buildings above the heads of passersby. The gallery partially enters the church of Santa Felicita. Thus, the ruler could attend the services without embarrassing the parishioners or the clergy with his appearance.
The construction of the Vasari Corridor lasted only 5.5 months, and Giorgio Vasari, who had previously earned fame as the builder of several Florentine palaces, became the creator of the unusual transition. Several subsequent restorations have made almost no changes to the appearance of the old gallery. Small round-shaped windows with preserved grilles remained from ancient times, but the panoramic windows above the bridge were installed already in the time of Mussolini. Currently, the Air Bridge belongs to the Uffizi Gallery.
Short description
The length of the Vasari Corridor is 750 meters. The covered gallery starts at Hall 500. Once this room was a barrack, which could comfortably accommodate about 500 inhabitants of the city. Later, the room was converted into a reception hall. The further territory belongs to the Uffizi Gallery, and it is here that the first exhibits are located.
Then the Vasari Corridor goes around the gallery itself, goes to the Pitti Palace, passes through the buildings and ends in the park. By the way, the ancient gardens are also considered the property of the republic. The beautiful park is comfortably home to sculptural compositions, fountains with lakes, artificial caves, the most famous of which is the grotto of Venus. The history of the art gallery inside the Vasari Corridor is interesting. There is a legend that once the Tuscan ruler found himself in the house of a very popular doctor. The walls in the house were covered with self-portraits of the most famous artists of that time. Cosimo offered the owner of the unique collection of paintings a rather large reward for transferring the collection to him, and when the doctor refused this offer, he ordered copies to be made. When the doctor died, some of the paintings were moved to the palace. Unfortunately, by that time, several canvases had already disappeared irretrievably.
After learning about the unusual collection, many masters of brushes and paints began to send their creations to the duke. This tradition continues today, and the placement of the self-portrait in the gallery testifies to the recognition of the merits of the painter. The collection also includes paintings by artists from later times. In total, there are about 1,400 works of art in the passage. However, some of them were badly damaged by the 1993 explosion and are still waiting in line for restoration.
