The Vasari Corridor, one of Florence’s most iconic spaces, has entered the next phase of its modern revival with a new installation: over fifty ancient Roman busts lining the passageway’s section over the Ponte Vecchio.
This new display, unveiled today by the Uffizi Galleries, marks a significant step in the museum’s ongoing project titled “Futuro nell’Antico” (“Future in the Ancient”), which seeks to reintegrate the Medici‘s vast archaeological collections into the Uffizi museum spaces.
The addition comes just months after the long-anticipated reopening of the Vasari Corridor on December 21, 2024. Closed for nearly a decade due to restoration, the corridor once again allows visitors to experience the elevated path that once served as a private walkway for the Medici grand dukes, linking their offices in Palazzo Vecchio with their residence in Palazzo Pitti via the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio. Since December, the corridor had been stripped of the portraits which had previously hung on its walls, drawing a fair bit of criticism from visitors.
This is no longer the case. Busts of famous Roman figures now line the corridor’s walls: Emperors such as Augustus and Antoninus Pius, intellectuals like Cicero, and imperial women including Sabina (wife of Hadrian) and Faustina (wife of Antoninus Pius). The busts had been acquired by 18th-century scholar and Uffizi deputy director Luigi Lanzi to rival the imperial portrait collection of Rome’s Capitoline Museums. Until 1993 many of them had a place in the Uffizi’s second-floor corridors, but they were placed in storage to restore the galleries to their documented pre-18th-century configuration.
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In another exciting development, the Uffizi has also introduced Friday evening access to the corridor until December, a move designed to open the experience to ease daytime crowding. These special visits allow guests to traverse the corridor under twilight, walking in the footsteps of the Medici.
“After the reconstitution of the Ancient Marbles Room on the second floor of the Gallery, this installation is a further step forward, in the spirit of the motto ‘Future in the Ancient,’ for the enhancement of Medicean archaeological collecting,” said Uffizi Director Simone Verde. “This tradition is represented at the Uffizi by complex ensembles such as the Niobe Room, the series of sculptures in the corridors reassembled according to the eighteenth-century arrangement by Luigi Lanzi, and the ambitious ongoing project to reconstruct the ancient inscription hall.”
Designed by Giorgio Vasari to allow the Grand Dukes to move safely from their private residence in Palazzo Pitti to the seat of government in Palazzo Vecchio, this overhead walkway remains unique and was built according to the wishes of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1565 on the occasion of his son Francesco’s marriage to Joanna of Austria. The walkway was built in just five months. The total route is about 750 metres, starting from the Uffizi up to the exit next to the Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens. The corridor runs above the city streets, along and over the Arno, enters buildings, goes around the Torre de’ Mannelli and tops the Church of Santa Felicita, in a succession of unusual panoramic views. Both the Uffizi and the Vasari Corridor were part of a wider project aimed at redeveloping the impoverished area between the Palazzo Vecchio and the Arno. It was inspired by the passageway between the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, which saved the life of Pope Clement VII, born Giulio de’ Medici, who managed to escape from the army of Charles V during the sack of Rome in 1527, as well as the Bramante passageway, built in 1505, to connect the Vatican Apostolic Palaces with the Casino del Belvedere of Innocent VIII.
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