The Vasari Corridor, a kilometre-long passageway connecting Palazzo Pitti with the Uffizi Galleries, is due to open to visitors and residents once more from next May, Uffizi director Eike Schmidt announced at a press conference on Wednesday.

The corridor above the River Arno was closed seven years ago for health and safety reasons. It’s been undergoing refurbishment since March 2021, and a donation of one million dollars from the US-based Edwin L. Wiegand Foundation has helped speed the process up.

The works to make it safe to re-enter include upgrades to meet fire hazard and air conditioning requirements, accessibility points, and better lighting. 

“We are now ready to finish, put the final touches to the structure and systems and then start with the layout,” Schmidt said.

The exact date of the reopening, May 27th, 2024, is a poigant one for Florence; it’s the 31st anniversary of the Via dei Georgofili mafia bombings in which five people were killed.

Schmidt told news agency Ansa five years ago that it would be nice to open the corridor on the anniversary of this tragic event to send a message of “courage” against the mafia.

This isn’t the first time the renaissance walkway has been in the news recently. In August, its columns were defaced with graffiti in one of many acts of vandalism at Italy’s cultural heritage sites this summer.

The Vasari Corridor was built in 1565 by Giorgio Vasari to allow Florence’s former rulers, The Medici family, to move freely between Palazzo Vecchio and their private residence at Palazzo Pitti, on the other side of the Arno.