Vasari Corrido to Open: Florence Walk between Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti

Florence, April 6 - A group of private investors said Monday it would open Florence's famous Vasari Corridor by 2013.

The group, Ser.Com, said it would spend five million euros overhauling the link between Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti and hiring staff to open it on a permanent basis.

Currently the corridor is only open to groups of up to 30, strictly by reservation.

The long-closed tunnel above the Ponte Vecchio was opened to visitors in March 2001 after previously only being accessible to art historians or other researchers.

The 750m-long corridor, built by Giorgio Vasari in 1565, provides a covered passageway from Palazzo Vecchio through the Uffizi Gallery, across the Ponte Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti, and offers unusual views of the city out of its round windows.

The Vasari Corrido was built so that the Medici's could walk in Florence from the Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace without mingling with the local Fiorentinos or Florentines. The Medici art collection decorated the corridor and is still hung with some 700 paintings of which one of the stars is the Venus of Urbino by Titian. It also contains works by Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci.

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