Vasari Corridor of the Uffizi: the new installation celebrates the greatness of the Roman Empire through 50 busts
The Uffizi Museum in Florence is back to talk about history: the Vasari Corridor , a passage that connects Palazzo Pitti to the Galleries crossing the heart of the city reopens in a new guise that tells the story. The exhibition will include a collection of fifty Roman busts that tell the story of the imperial era; after more than 30 years of storage, these sculptures are back on display to the public with a very respectable project.
The initiative is part of the Futuro nell'Antico project curated and desired by director Simone Verde, which aims to enhance an archaeological heritage preserved in the museum's collections. The location was not chosen by chance: it is the corridor desired by Cosimo I de' Medici to connect Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti without ever having to access the street.
The busts that populate the Vasari Corridor of the OfficesWe cannot simply talk about ancient busts: the collection of 50 faces tells the story of the Roman Empire through authentic portraits ranging from Cicero to Augustus to Commondo and faces such as Antoninus Pius and Sabina, empress and wife of Hadrian.
Alongside the busts of these figures there are many others, equally evocative but less known. The artistic quality of the works, combined with their symbolic value, will make the corridor one of the most evocative experiences to have during a visit to the Uffizi.
The sculptures on display are not new to the Uffizi , but a rediscovery . Until 1993, in fact, they were an integral part of the museum itinerary on the second floor of the Gallery. They were removed following the decision to return the sculptural furnishings to their eighteenth-century origins, according to the documented vision of the time.
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Many of these busts were purchased in the eighteenth century by the scholar and antiquarian Luigi Lanzi , deputy director of the Gallery , with the aim of strengthening the collection of imperial portraits of the Medici Galleries. After their exclusion from the museum project of the nineties, they were kept in storage, invisible to the public for over three decades.
Today, their relocation takes on the dual meaning of historical restitution and cultural valorization . Not only do they fit into the original path designed for Vasari environments, but they also rediscover their role as artistic ambassadors of Roman classicism.
Homage to Roman historyThis renewed exhibition allows Florence to symbolically confront the great Roman collections, such as the Capitoline Museums . Already in the 18th century, the Florentine collection was considered to be on a par with the best collections in the capital, and the return of the busts to the Vasari itinerary reinforces this dialogue between the two cities that are symbols of Italian artistic heritage.
The Vasari Corridor thus becomes a gallery between the sky, the Arno and history , where the voice of the ancient emperors returns to resonate among the stones of the Renaissance.
The official press release reports the comment of the director of the Gallerie Simone Verde who commented on the project as follows: “After the reconstruction of the hall of ancient marbles on the second floor of the Gallery, this installation is a further step forward, under the motto Future in the Ancient , for the valorization of the Medici archaeological collections, which are present in the Uffizi with exemplary complexes such as the Hall of Niobe, the series of sculptures in the corridors recomposed on the basis of the eighteenth-century arrangement, later historicized, by the then vice director of the Gallery Luigi Lanzi and the ambitious and evocative project, currently underway, of the reconstruction of the ancient ricetto delle iscrizioni”.
