After 8 years, the Vasari Corridor reopened on December 21st, as promised by director Simone Verde the day after his appointment at the Uffizi Galleries last year. That tunnel, over 750 meters long, commissioned by the Medici to move undisturbed between Palazzo Vecchio, the Boboli Gardens and Palazzo Pitti, is once again accessible as a suspended walkway over the center of Florence, crossing through palaces, soaring above the Arno and the crowded Ponte Vecchio, overlooking the church of Santa Felicita, which houses a Deposition and an Annunciation by Pontormo (1526-28). Entering the church from the small square of the same name, the painting is immediately on the right, and just a small coin is needed to illuminate this Mannerist masterpiece, the work of an unconventional artist with his pastel temperas and light figures. Yet not many know about these extraordinary works that are so easily accessible, demonstrating that in Florence, despite being plagued by overtourism, one can still find alternative places away from the madding crowd.

This is the challenge of the Secret Grand Tours designed by art historian Beba Marsano for Due Torri Hotels, an Italian group that focuses on culture, with five-star hotels in Bologna, Verona, Genoa, and Florence. The Florentine tour begins in the lobby of Hotel Bernini Palace. The first stop is Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, a model of Renaissance architecture with its sequence of porticos that follow the timeline: Brunelleschi’s porticos in front of the Spedale degli Innocenti from 1420, the Loggia dei Servi di Maria from a century later, and those of the basilica dated 1601, closing an unrepeatable era.

Another rarely visited jewel is the Dominican convent of San Marco (1437), the work of two major personalities of the time, architect Michelozzo and painter Fra Angelico, who gave his best with the frescoes in the cells dedicated to the Passion of Christ represented through symbols: the sponge soaked in vinegar, Judas’s kiss, the 30 pieces of silver from the betrayal, the nails clutched in hand. These paintings, so modern they anticipate surrealism, will be the subject of the “Angelico” exhibition which, for the first time, brings together his works between the convent and Palazzo Strozzi (from September 26). Unmissable masterpieces of the era also include Benozzo Gozzoli’s frescoes covering every inch of wall in the Chapel of the Magi at Palazzo Medici Riccardi (visits of 7 minutes for 10 people at a time), and the sublime frescoes by Masaccio, Masolino, and Filippo Lippi in the Brancacci Chapel, finally visible again in May 2024 after two years of restoration, in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, in the Oltrarno district.

“Dilddarno,” as the Florentines say, is the ideal place to take a break from so much beauty (Stendhal syndrome is not just a figure of speech!): at Sforno, a mix of bakery, grocery store, and café, or at Floret for a “mindful brunch” inside Palazzo San Niccolò, a riverside hotel with a private garden. Or even at Atelier de Nerli, where tasty, simple Italian cuisine is prepared with carefully selected ingredients. It’s a bohemian area with original spots like Nadine, a vintage clothing and accessories store, Profumoir, the library of essences conceived by Daniele Cavalli with master perfumer Sileno Cheloni (you can even sleep in a suite inside), and Betty Soldi’s atelier where she teaches the art of calligraphy.

The itinerary among hidden treasures continues (better the next day) with Michelangelo Buonarroti’s house, with zero queue at the ticket office. In the rooms rich with family collections, with a gallery of allegorical frescoes including Artemisia Gentileschi’s Inclination, Michelangelo’s drawings are exhibited along with two early marble masterpieces: the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs, which Michelangelo sculpted when he was only 17 years old. There would be many other stops, from every era and style, surprising and eclectic like the Stefano Bardini Museum or unexpected like the Zeffirelli Foundation: in the halls of the former courthouse, among sketches and models, opera costumes and on-set photos, you can retrace the career of Franco Zeffirelli. It truly seems impossible that the general public hasn’t yet discovered this immersive place dedicated to the complete works of yet another Florentine talent who will go down in history.

Published on Il Sole24Ore

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