Vasari Corridor (the secret passageway of the Medici)
Picture this. You’re the ruler of Florence and, while your family has gone through a good few hundred years, occasionally things turn against you, and sometimes it’s dangerous to go outside. Plus, while your city is very modern and uses all the latest inventions for its noble palaces, the streets are dirty places with open sewers running down the sides and evidence of horse traffic down the middle. As the ruler, you can build whatever you want, so you command your chief architect to build a (not very) secret passageway that goes above everyone else’s homes, and even over a bridge, to connect your office to your home (which just happens to be a huge palace and garden).
It is a covered walk, almost a kilometre in length, an overhead passageway that starts out from the West Corridor of the Gallery, heads towards the Arno and then, raised up by huge arches, follows the river as far as the Ponte Vecchio, which it crosses by passing on top of the shops.
On the other side of the Arno, the corridor passes through the interior of the church of Santa Felicita, Down the tops of the houses and the gardens of the Guicciardini family until it finally reaches the Boboli gardens (one of the exits stands beside Buontalenti’s Grotto) and the apartments in the Pitti Palace.
This enabled the Grand Duke and his family to move easily and safely from their official residence to the Palazzo Pitti. Initially the Palazzo Pitti was used mostly for lodging official guests and for occasional functions of the court, while the Medicis’ principal residence remained the Palazzo Vecchio.
Nowadays, it features a self-portrait museum.