Two police officers in Florence after an attack in 1993
Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images
The Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence has begun a major renovation of a Renaissance passageway in a project that the museum’s director Eike Schmidt has dubbed “a warning against all forms of aggression against humanity and cultural heritage”.
The 760m-long Vasari Corridor was damaged in a bombing by the Mafia in 1993 that killed five people. During the ongoing renovation, the structure will be fitted with two memorials marking local acts of terror.
The suspended corridor was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici and built by the Renaissance artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari in 1565, allowing the Grand Duke to pass unseen between the Palazzo Pitti and the Palazzo Vecchio—Cosimo’s residence and the government palace. From 1973, the Uffizi displayed self-portraits by artists including Rembrandt and De Chirico in the corridor, before closing the structure in 2016 due to safety concerns.