Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries, intends to reopen the Vasari corridor to the public in 2022. The corridor was shut in 2016 for safety reasons.
The Vasari Corridor is a kilometre-long passageway connecting the Uffizi Gallery to the Pitti Palace. Today, the corridor still connects the two buildings via the famous Ponte Vecchio.
The entrance to the corridor is located on the first floor within the Uffizi Gallery behind an unmarked door.
What will be shown in the Vasari Corridor?
“The restoration works of the long gallery,” explained Eike Schmidt, “will make the path even more philologically correct, with the reopening of many windows, 72 beautiful views of Florence”. Via the paintings, which the museum is setting up in the new rooms on the ground floor, and off to epigraphs and ancient works: “If Vasari had had a little more time than the six months in which the corridor was built, he would have certainly set up with ancient epigraphs and statues, as was the custom for these environments.”
Schmidt stressed the Vasari is not just a monument of the Renaissance; its walls have witnessed terrible moments in history; namely the Second World War and the attack of the Georgofili, in ’93. In the new exhibition, two stages will remember these moments and for this reason there will be free visits for everyone.
Pricing lower than many agencies charged
As for the entrance ticket at €45, Schmidt had this to say: “The cost of the full ticket to visit the Vasari Corridor will be €45, which is not even half of what certain agencies were asking before.
“We will open it to the public in the autumn of next year and it will be very different and much more Vasari than it was until 2016,” the director told the Ansa Forum.
“There will also be free days, free special visits for the public.”
Schmidt also mentioned the excellent attendance at the Uffizi with “over 70% more visitors than last summer, a slightly smaller crowd even compared to the records of 2019, when the Covid pandemic did not end.”
