Florence, Italy, endless gallery under the Vasari corridor

by Maarten Hoek

Florence, Italy, gallery near the Uffizi and the Arno river
Endless arch gallery
Illuminated

This corridor lies below the Vasari corridor.
The secret corridor was built by order of Cosimo I, who no longer wanted to be among 'the rabble' when he had to cross the Arno to go from Palazzo Pitti, where the Medici family lived at the time, to Palazzo Vecchio, where he worked. This was not only because he did not want to be accosted by people who wanted to know something about him, but mainly because of the stench that hung on and around the Ponte Vecchio. At the time, the bridge was the domain of tanners - and a little later of butchers and fishmongers - so you can imagine what it smelled like. It was only under the reign of Ferdinando I that the bridge was swept clean and the shops were taken over by goldsmiths and jewellers, who caused no nuisance to the Florentines' olfactory system.

So Cosimo no longer wanted to simply walk the streets and devised a plan for a special corridor. He is said to have taken the idea for this from Homer's tales of Odysseus, where the palaces between Priamos and Hektor are also connected by a covered corridor. The idea was born, and Cosimo left the elaboration to his court architect, Vasari. It must have taken him a lot of headaches to cover the entire route Cosimo wanted, especially since it also had to be done as quickly as possible.