El famoso corredor de Vasari

The entrance is located in the third corridor, between room 25 and room 34. The Corridor, which spans the Arno River over the Ponte Vecchio connecting the Uffizi and Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti, was commissioned from Vasari by Cosimo I de' Medici and completed in a very short time, five months, in 1565.

It suffered severe damage during World War II and could only be reopened to the public in 1973. The route runs for almost a kilometer, and the windows and “eyes” that open along its path offer visitors evocative views of the city, the river and the Ponte Vecchio. One window, recently reopened, overlooks the interior of the church of Santa Felicita, on the Oltrarno, and it seems that from that same vantage point the grand dukes attended Mass.

On display in the Vasarian Corridor are numerous works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first rooms display notable paintings by Caravaggesque painters, including Gherardo delle Notti with The Good Fortune, Toast in Olympus, and Supper with Lute Player; Rutilio Manetti, Francesco Rustici with Painting and Architecture; Artemisia Gentileschi with Judith and Holofernes; and Guido Reni.

This is followed by works by 17th-century Italian painters, from Annibale Carracci to Guido Reni with his Sleeping Endymion. A long corridor houses 17th-century Italian paintings, divided by city; these include Giovan Battista Crespi's Sacred Conversation, Guercino's Sybil Samia, and a Portrait of Cardinal Agucchia by Domenichino. There are also works from the Neapolitan school, including Salvator Rosa, Battistello Caracciolo, Cerquozzi, and Giuseppe Recco with one of his still lifes, the splendid Fair of Poggio a Caiano by Giuseppe Maria Crespi, putti in volo by Giovan Battista Tiepolo, and finally some canvases by Rosalba Carriera and Pompeo Batoni.

The most famous part of the Vasari Corridor is the one devoted to the extraordinary collection of self-portraits from every era, both Italian and foreign. Italians include those of Leonardo, Vasari, Agnolo, Taddeo and Gaddo Gaddi, Romanino, Andrea del Sarto, Bronzino, Titian, Jacopo Bassano, Palma il Giovane, Veronese, and many others. Concluding the itinerary is an iconographic collection with portraits of famous people from various eras.