The Secret Passages of the Palazzo Vecchio

Students from Colby-Sawyer College and the Oregon consortium had a very special tour this week: befitting the celebration of Halloween, a festival that deals with the eerie and paranormal, we visited the secret corridors and chambers of the Palazzo Vecchio, including the beautiful alchemy studiolo of Francesco de'Medici.

            The tour started in the ground-level courtyard of the palace, where we met our guide. A natural story-teller, she started by relating a short history of how the palace was expanded over the centuries, and how the secret corridors were incorporated into the extensions. Then we were led into the first chamber, which was originally designed as a defensive stopgap against any would-be attackers.

 In the end, however, it proved futile – the palace was stormed before the defences could be completed! On we went to a small, nondescript room which today holds little more than some basic models displaying how the palace grew from a modest stronghold, but was formerly the treasure room of Cosimo de’Medici. We paused here, and listened to the tale of Francesco de’Medici, Cosimo’s less power-hungry heir, and how he was a virtual recluse. A mystery to even his own family, he holed himself up in the palace, and had a special room built – and decorated under the supervision of the ubiquitous Giorgio Vasari - to which he had the only key. The contents of the room remained hidden from view, in fact, until he died, whereupon his brother, Ferdinando, discovered that it was in fact an alchemist’s study. The quest for turning any material into gold – and the gift of eternal life – was of course heretical in medieval Europe, and so the room was locked, and remained neglected until the 20^th Century.

            And then, finishing her story, the guide opened the door and led us in. A beautiful ceiling, painted with personifications of the four elements and their qualities, arches over walls panelled with cupboards, whose doors hold paintings by some of the most famous artists of the time and which enigmatically depict what each cupboard once held. Our guide told us of the rich symbology of the various paintings, the small zodiacal adornments, the portraits of Cosimo and his wife, Eleonora of Toledo, and then allowed us to take our time to inspect the decorations.

            The tour did not end there, however. Passing a small, bare room whose use no two historians can agree upon – and which therefore remains just another riddle in a place full of them! – we went on up into the Salone dei Cinquecento, the impressive main hall of the palace. Richly decorated with frescoes along the walls, and displaying its monumental ceiling – again finished under the watchful eye of Vasari – the hall still serves as a meeting place for Florence’s city council.

            We finished the tour above this same ceiling. Vasari was not only an artist and writer, but obviously a gifted architect, and we were shown the complicated and ingenious methods by which he managed to support the ceiling by hanging it from the roof, rather than supporting it from below.

            Altogether, it was a fascinating tour, and one which gave the students a privileged view into the more cryptic side of the de’Medici dynasty and the history of Florence itself.