FLORENCE, ITALY – The Vasari Corridor in Florence is to be shut down effective immediately, museum officials announced Monday July 11, 2016. A fire department inspection found the corridor is not up to code.
The Corridor
The wordwide famous Corridor (Corridoio Vasariano) links the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace. It is an elevated enclosed passageway which begins on the south side of the Palazzo Vecchio, joins the Uffizi Gallery and leaves on its south side, crosses the Lungarno dei Archibusieri and then follows the north bank of the River Arno until it crosses the Ponte Vecchio. The Corridor currently houses some 700 works of art, of which 500 are self-portraits.
The Eike’s project
Most of it is currently closed to visitors. Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt earlier this year announced the Corridor would be opened to the public in October as part of a revamp of the museum, in one of the most keenly awaited moves in the Italian cultural world.
The Schmidt’s project provided several rooms at the first floor of the Uffizi Gallery that will house the central core of the self-portraits now in the Vasari Corridor by the end of 2017 in order to the opening up to the public of the Corridor.
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