Episode 38 – Florence: Ponte Vecchio and the Vasari Corridor

Buongiorno! I’m Dr. Rocky Ruggiero. Join me in rebuilding the Renaissance and making art and history come to life.

Welcome to the Rebuilding the Renaissance podcast, your guide to the art and history of Italy, from the glory of Rome to the magnificence of the Renaissance. And now here’s your host, Dr. Rocky Ruggiero.

Buongiorno, and buona sera, everyone. Today we are talking about one of the most famous bridges in the world, known popularly as the Ponte Vecchio in the city of Florence. The present structure that you see was built beginning in the year 1345, and if you remember back to our podcast about the Palazzo Vecchio, about the medieval city hall of Florence, I told you that it really does not make sense to build something and to call it vecchio, or old, immediately, right? Anything called vecchio in the city of Florence is essentially a later nickname. The original name of city hall was the Palazzo della Signoria, and the original name of the Ponte Vecchio, or of the old bridge, ponte, P-O-N-T-E, is the Italian word for bridge. The original name was Ponte Santo Stefano, or the Bridge of Saint Stephen, because tradition in Florence was that the medieval bridges took their names from the churches situated on the northern side of the river.

Although very few people I think I have seen it, if you’re coming off the Ponte Vecchio walking north towards Piazza della Repubblica and the Duomo, there’s this little side street that you pass on your right hand side and you’ll see this green and white church facade, which adorns a deconsecrated church called Santo Stefano, the Church of St. Stephen. It is a Romanesque structure built approximately around the same time as the original Ponte Vecchio. Now, the structure that you see today, as I mentioned, was built in 1345 to replace an earlier 12th century bridge, which essentially collapsed in 1333. But there was a bridge there even before, in the 10th century. The earliest documented mention of a bridge spanning that particular part of the river dates back to 996, but even more impressively, there has been a bridge on that particular spot since ancient Roman times.

If you remember our podcast about the ancient origins of the city of Florence, the Roman origins of the city of Florence, I mentioned that there has been a bridge spanning that particular spot for the last two millennia because the Romans were such efficient engineers that they realized it was the shortest span. In other words, it’s the narrowest point of the Arno River Valley, therefore the most convenient place to build a bridge, and that’s why the Romans laid out their bridge in the first century before Christ to then be replaced in the 10th century, to then be replaced in the 14th century, as well, the Ponte Vecchio.

Now, the other reason they refer to it as the old bridge or as the Ponte Vecchio is because it’s the only surviving original bridge in the city of Florence. All of the other medieval bridges were destroyed in 1945 when the Nazi occupation troops were retreating in a northerly direction, again towards the Piazza della Repubblica, towards the Duomo and beyond. And so to prevent the allies from using those bridges to transport tanks and other types of artillery, the Nazis decided to demolish all of the other bridges. All of the standing bridges in Florence today are either modern reconstructions of the originals or are modern bridges. Ponte Vecchio is the exception. It was not destroyed.

Lots of speculation as to why. Perhaps the most, let’s say, legendary of these stories, for lack of a better word, was that a gentleman by the name of Adolf Hitler in his last fleeting moments of life telegraphed in a message to his Nazi ground people to not destroy the bridge because he had fond memories of it when he crossed with a gentleman named Benito Mussolini back in 1933, when in fact, the fuhrer visited the city of Florence. Now, personally speaking, I believe that Hitler probably had more pressing issues to deal with than salvaging the bridge in the city of Florence. Another theory as to why the bridge survived involves a local hero who supposedly sprinted across the Vasari Corridor and was able to unhook the detonation wires just before the Germans tried to demolish the bridge, and so local heroism. Another, there was a local German colonel who realized that the fight was for naught and it was senseless to destroy the bridge, and so he ordered the bridge to be spared.

Well, all of this probably leading to the most practical I think of explanations, and that was that German engineers did not think that the 700 year old sub-structure would be able to sustain the weight of allied tanks rolling across, so why destroy the bridge if the allies couldn’t use it? Just to make sure to guarantee that the allies did not use the bridge, the Germans blew up everything at either end. If you simply Google the words Ponte Vecchio and World War II, you’ll actually see these rather distressing photos of the bridge standing amidst mountains of rubble and debris on either side because the Germans destroyed all of the buildings on both the northern and southern ends of the bridge, and essentially, it was the equivalent of destroying the bridge itself because they had to clear that rubble, the allies did, in order to get across. In fact, that’s why most of those buildings that you see at either end of the Ponte Vecchio are such modern-looking buildings because they are modern buildings, most of them built after World War II.

Now, the bridge itself, most famous probably for the fact that it houses shops and commercial activity. When most of us imagine bridges, what we imagine our structures of passage are to get from one place to another, but instead Ponte Vecchio still has shops, shops that have operated on the bridge since it was built back in the 14th century. The reason is very simply because the urban reality of medieval cities was that space was the most precious of urban commodities. In other words, there wasn’t very much space. Medieval cities were usually walled, and so that meant that real estate was limited. Of course, people wanted to live inside the walls, not outside. This was part of the reason why Tower House was developed. It was a way to maximize the limited amount of urban space.

And so what they did was to essentially build on every possible surface, including bridges. And the Ponte Vecchio has housed commercial activity, again, for the last seven centuries. The original merchants or professionals to occupy the bridge were leather tanners back in the 14th century who would essentially soak their hides in the water of the Arno and used urine to cure those hides as well. Horse urine was their preferred medium by which to cure their hides, and for about 100 years or so, we had leather tanners occupying the bridge, but then in 1422, those shops were filled with butchers. And it wasn’t a sudden shift. It was sort of a gradual, let’s say, progression or transformation from original leather tanners to then butchers moving in a little bit later on, and those butchers remained on the bridge now for almost two full centuries.

What happens is a rather radical transformation of the city. We’ll talk about this in a later podcast, but the Medici family would eventually take over Florence. They ruled Florence in the 15th century as unofficial or defacto rulers. But then in 1531, they became the official and legal rulers, the dukes first and eventually grand dukes of the city. And when this happened, there was a dramatic transformation in Florence, mainly because these Medici dukes had lived temporarily in the former city hall inside of Palazzo Vecchio transforming it into their ducal palace. But then in 1542, a woman named Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Duke Cosimo the first decided to move the royal residence from the former city hall and into a much larger structure on the other side of the river called the Pitti Palace.

And when the Medici moved to the Pitti Palace on the other side of the bridge, essentially, it was rather unsightly for heads of state and visiting diplomats and ambassadors to have to walk through sides of beef. Remember, the butchers were on the bridge at the time, to have to walk through the skinned and plucked animals, and so it was in 1593 that Grand Duke Ferdinand, the first Domenici, decided to essentially evict the so-called vile art of butchery and to essentially replace those butchers with goldsmiths. So it was in 1593 that goldsmithery took over as the main profession on the bridge, replacing those butchers. The idea of course that now, these visiting heads of states and ambassadors would see A, the riches of Florence and the gold and the jewels that would have been on display.

And goldsmithery to us may seem like a rather minor art, but consider that it was one of the most prestigious in Florence going all the way back to the middle ages and consider as well … We’ll talk about this in future podcasts … that artists like Ghiberti and Brunelleschi and Cellini were all technically goldsmiths by profession, so the idea now that these goldsmiths could show off their wares reflecting their own ability as artisans, but also reflecting the general richness of the city of Florence. And so these goldsmiths have inhabited the bridge for the last five centuries, and the joke in Florence is that the general markup on the cost of gold is about 100% per century that they have been on the bridge. And I say that facetiously, but Ponte Vecchio does have rather inflated prices, albeit, it is probably the most famous place on the planet to in fact purchase objects in gold.

Now, consider that nobody lives on the bridge. This is a clause that goes all the way back to the middle ages because if someone resided upon the bridge, they could then control the bridge, sort of like Game of Thrones. I don’t remember the name of that particular family, but I do remember the red wedding where essentially that family controlled that bridge and so they were able to play a very important part, and the same thing goes there. So at the end of the day, still today, all those goldsmiths close up their shops and go home.

Now, you’ll also notice some rather odd design feature of the Ponte Vecchio, and that is that one side of it is taller than the other. Technically speaking, the eastern side of the bridge is taller than the western side. And the reason is because the Ponte Vecchio also supports one of the most unique structures in the world, and that is Vasari Corridor, Vasari with a V like Venison, V-A-S-A-R-I. This is one of the more sought after eclectic sites in the city of Florence. The Vasari Corridor is called such because it was designed and built by an architect named Giorgio Vasari, who I’ve been mentioning over and over throughout these podcasts. Vasari is celebrated more as an art historian.

He was the author of this famed book called The Lives of the Artists, which tells us much about the lives, the biographical details and the art of Vasari’s near contemporaries, going all the way back to contemporaries, such as Michelangelo. And so for us, Vasari’s work is a primary source. Well, Vasari was also an artist and an architect, and he became the official court artist of the Medici dukes, and essentially had his hand in just about every cookie jar. It was Vasari who was the architect of a building called the Uffizi, which today is the celebrated painting gallery, but was originally built as the central capital administrative building of what was then the duchy, soon to be grand duchy of Tuscany. And Vasari was also responsible in large part for directing the enlargement and the enrichment of that Pitti Palace.

And in 1565, there was a very important grand ducal wedding that was taking place in the city of Florence between a gentleman named Francesco Domenici, firstborn son of Duke Cosimo, the first and Eleonora of Toledo, and a woman known as Giovan of Austria. She was a Habsburg princess. And all the biggies, all the major political figures in Europe, were converging on Florence for this wedding. And so the Duke and Vasari put their heads together and decided to build something absolutely unique, and that is this Vasari Corridor.

Now, what is the Vasari Corridor? It is an elevated, covered passageway, a corridor, that is two thirds of a mile long, which essentially connects still today the duke’s office, which is the Uffizi Gallery, to the duke’s home, which is the Pitti Palace itself. And what this corridor did … Still visible in that portion. Essentially when you’re looking off of the Ponte Vecchio, if you’re looking east in the direction of the Uffizi, you’ll see this series of arches supporting a corridor with these circular and rectangular windows. That is the visible portion of the corridor, which then turns south.

It passes over the eastern side of the Ponte Vecchio, so when you’re standing on the bridge, you look up and those three large picture windows that you see are in the corridor and then it continues on past the church called Santa Felicita, the church of Saint Felicity, and then through people’s private homes until eventually the corridor lets out into the gardens of the Pitti Palace, known as the Boboli Gardens, and so the dukes could actually exit there and then take a leisurely stroll through their property as they headed back into their home, or if the weather was inclement, they could continue and the corridor actually lets out into the Sala Bianca, into one of the rooms of the Pitti Palace. So the idea that the dukes did not have to worry about security because the structure is enclosed, they did not have to worry about inclement weather because the structure is covered and they did not have to worry about rush hour traffic, of course, getting back and forth.

And so this is not a sort of secret passage that allowed the dukes to sneak out. That would be underground. That would be something that you couldn’t see. This was a very privileged walkway, which was a clear reflection of what the political hierarchy in Florence was at the time. The duke was up there, his subjects were down there, and according to, of course, ducal philosophy, that’s the way it should be, right? The ruler up high. It also gave the ruler this sort of sense of omnipotence because he could be anywhere. He could be in his office, he could be in his home, he could be somewhere in between, and those windows were specially designed. In fact, on the circular windows on the outside of the Vasari Corridor, those windows allowed the duke to project his head outward, to stick his head out and to listen to the conversations going on, so it was a way even to eavesdrop upon his subjects down below. A rather unique structure.

Now, everyone of course describes the corridor as simply being a reflection of this new royal state and reality in the city of Florence. But in my mind, there was another reason. This wedding that was going on, bringing the holy Roman emperor, the pope, all the major European rulers to Florence. And I always believed that this corridor represented the solution of a security headache. Like today when cities host G8s or New York City holds a United Nations Security Council meeting, the amount of energy, time and money that goes into security is astonishing. So the idea that this corridor essentially allowed the dukes’ guests to move freely across the city all the way from the Pitti Palace across the Ponte Vecchio through the Uffizi, and in fact, if you’re standing over by the Uffizi or near the Palazzo Vecchio, there’s this little bridge that connects the two as well, so you can make your way all the way to Palazzo Vecchio.

The reason I’m convinced that this structure was in fact part of the sort of security detail of this particular wedding is that the entirety of the structure was built in an 11 month period, all right? Now, it’s not the most complicated thing in the world to build. It’s just a corridor. But it is long. It is two thirds of a mile. And I think that the 11 month time limit on its construction was a reflection of the urgency essentially to have this structure built so that when these rulers came to Florence, they could of course enjoy it. And of course for Cosimo, this would’ve been a feather in his cap to have built something that is absolutely unique to Europe, okay, and has this covered passageway, which would allow him to essentially boast of his privileged position in his city as well.

Now, the three picture windows that you have at the center of Ponte Vecchio on the corridor, so that side that’s a little bit higher, that structure that makes it higher is the Vasari Corridor, is or were the windows themselves a later addition? They were added back in 1933, as I mentioned, when Adolf Hitler came to Florence. He was on his Italian tour. He went from Milan to Rome to Naples and then trained back up through Florence before heading back to Germany. And the fascists of course, looking very hard to impress the new ruler of Germany, and so they decided to knock through the 500 year old wall of the Vasari Corridor to introduce those picture windows so that Hitler’s view downstream would actually be better than looking through those circular windows that you see today. It was the last major modification that was made to the structure in 1933, although in reality, the central window was already there in the 19th century and then in 1933, the two flanking picture windows were added instead.

And you’ll often see people looking up wondering what is inside of the Vasari Corridor. Now, the Vasari Corridor is in a state of flux right now and suspended because for many years, we were not allowed into the structure simply because it was a fire hazard. There’s one door in and there’s one door out and they are two thirds of a mile away from each other, and 90% of the windows are small and are screened with iron bars, so if there were in fact an emergency, it would obviously be rather difficult for people to get out. Recently, there has been a move to open the Vasari Corridor to the general public, which has become a bit more complicated than originally thought simply because it’s not easy to add emergency exits to a 500 year old corridor passing over a 700 year old bridge. At the time of this recording, the Vasari Corridor is sort of in limbo. It is closed still to the general public, but we’re also uncertain about its future and its accessibility to that general public eventually, which hopefully will be resolved quite soon.

So that structure is standing at the very heart of Florence, the Ponte Vecchio, reflecting the medieval reality of the city. The bridge which has stood at the very heart of Florence for the last 2000 years was eventually joined by other bridges as well. In fact, further west, the next bridge that went up in the middle ages was the Ponte alle Grazie, which was constructed in 1220, and then the bridge to the East of the Ponte Vecchio today called the Ponte de le Grazie, the bridge of the graces, was originally called the Rubicon Bridge back in 1237. The interesting thing about that bridge is that if you see pre-World War II photographs before it was destroyed, you will actually see little structures on that bridge in the photographs because the bridge once supported cells, essentially little houses or shacks inhabited by nuns, so it was a type of convent that was stretched out across the River Arno.

Unfortunately, that convent was destroyed in World War II and then eventually the bridge to the immediate west of Ponte Vecchio, which is the Santa Trinita Bridge, or the Bridge of the Holy Trinity, that was constructed in 1252, demolished and then replaced in the 16th century by the bridge that you essentially see today because the bridge, the Ponte Santa Trinita, is an exact replica of the 16th century bridges I mentioned before, and much of the material of that bridge is original. It was simply fished out of the Arno River after the Germans demolished the bridge and then reincorporated into its original form.

And these bridges of course, right, are structures of passage, but at the same time, in the medieval context, reflecting the expansion of the city. The original city of Florence was entirely on the northern bank of the river. But as more and more people began to settle on the southern side, it of course became important to connect the two, and so Ponte Vecchio always serving as the main thoroughfare to get across, but then eventually the Ponte alla Carraia, linking into the San Frediano section of Florence, which is the most inhabited eventually in the city, and then the other bridges as well, and so the notion essentially of getting back and forth.

And interestingly, during the middle ages, there was legislation that prevented people from building too close to the ends of the bridges for the same reason that they didn’t want people living on the bridges, and that was control of the bridges themselves. And so today when one comes to Florence and sees this rather idyllic image of the River Arno flowing east to west through the city with these beautiful bridges going across, few of them realize just how rich and complicated and complex history actually surrounds them, just as when many visitors come to Florence and go into those gold shops that are on the bridge, not realizing that those goldsmiths in one form or another have occupied that structure for the last five centuries. Today the shops are leased by the occupants, and oftentimes those leases are very expensive, which sometimes reflects the price as well. It is one of the more crowded places in the city of Florence of course.

My favorite aspect about the Ponte Vecchio is that curiously, you don’t realize that you are on a bridge. When you’re walking in access, either from the north of the south, what you see is a river of humanity and you just sort of follow along and you feel the slight incline as you’re moving up and you just imagine that the street itself is sloping upward. But then when you get about halfway across, we suddenly realize that there’s a sort of opening on either side and when you go to your left or your right, you’ll actually see and discover that you are suspended above water. And that was that medieval urban reality. Again, we’re still back in the 14th century, hence my discussion of the Ponte Vecchio today, and that urban reality of a very crowded city, a crowded city that was essentially then weeded out by the black death of 1348, but the notion again of building on bridges as they did on Ponte Vecchio simply to maximize the amount of buildable surface that they had in the city at the time.

Okay. So with that, we’ll finish up our discussion about Ponte Vecchio, and in our next podcast, we’ll move to another of the major 14th century monuments in Florence, buildings and Florence, known as Orsanmichele. So you can practice the pronunciation of this building between now and listening to my next podcast. Orsanmichele, a grain market turn church, which is really one of the best places to discuss the evolution, the transformation of a medieval city into a Renaissance one. So stay tuned for more.

For more information on lectures and programs in the United States, art history tours in Italy and for online video lectures, visit RockyRuggiero.com.