Secret passage that Florence’s Medici used to move safely reopens to public after 8-year renovation

Associated Press

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — For centuries, Florence’s 16th-century Vasari Corridor was only accessible to dukes and lords. Now, the raised passageway that connects the city’s Uffizi Galleries to the former residence of the powerful Medici family, has reopened to the public after an eight-year restoration project. The corridor, named after the Renaissance architect and biographer Giorgio Vasari, who designed it, is some 750 meters (820 yards) long. It stretches from the Uffizi Museums to the imposing Palazzo Pitti, passing over Ponte Vecchio above the tiny historic jewelry boutiques that cross the Arno river. The corridor was built by the Medici family to allow them to move secretly and safely from one part of the historic Italian city to another.