The Vasari Corridor reopens to the public in its splendour, here's how it will be visited

It took eight years of restoration and extensive work. But the marvellous Vasari Corridor, the aerial passage connecting Palazzo Vecchio and the Palace above the city streets, reopens to the public. After the official ribbon-cutting ceremony on 20 December with Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli, the so-called 'prince's path' will be accessible from the following day on a regular basis from Tuesday to Sunday.

The walkway was hastily built in 1565 by Cosimo I de' Medici in time for the marriage of his son Francesco to Giovanna of Austria. An incredible aerial corridor, 760 metres long, it was intended to allow the Grand Dukes to move safely from their private residence in Palazzo Pitti to the seat of government in Palazzo Vecchio. The project was entrusted to Giorgio Vasari, who succeeded in the feat of completing it in just six months, illuminating it with a sequence of overlooks on the city, 72 windows in all, that allowed the Dukes to capture its beauty and exercise control over it.

Closed in 2016 to allow adaptation to safety standards, it has been entirely restored (the last intervention dates back to the 1990s) and now, on the first useful day allowed by the end of construction, it is once again accessible with a special ticket: one enters through the Gallery of Statues and Paintings, walks into the bowels of Ponte Vecchio and exits through the Boboli Gardens. The work, costing about 10 million euro (plus one million dollars donated in 2023 by the US entrepreneur Raymond "Skip" Avansino) started in 2022, finishing in recent weeks. The former director of the Uffizi Galleries, Eike Schmidt, had already announced some time ago that the reopening of the world's most famous Corridor would be postponed.

Visits are now resuming for which reservations will, however, be required, starting on 10 December. The Vasari Corridor can be accessed by purchasing a ticket for the Uffizi Gallery at a special surcharge of €43. Admission will be limited. Twenty-five people will enter at a time and will only be able to walk along the corridor in one direction: from the Uffizi to the Boboli Gardens, and exit through the door next to the Buontalenti Grotto.

"Keeping a commitment made to citizens the day after its inauguration, the Vasari Corridor will reopen to the public by the end of 2024. For the Uffizi complex, this is a moment of strategic importance that allows the unity of its monumental and collecting history to be restored, also in its usability," director Simone Verde told journalists. "Visitors who wish to do so will be able to pass from one side of the Arno to the other, appreciating in all its sprawling extension the vastness, coherence and wealth of the Medici citadel of power and the arts. This opening, in fact, goes hand in hand with the systematic work of redevelopment and museum recomposition underway'. The 'second great commitment' with Florence will be to pull down the 'damned crane' from the Uffizi square.