When I was a very young art historian in training, I fell head over heels in love with Italy. I’ve been pulled to Italy by some big magnet within my being pretty much my whole life.  That magnetic pull is not something anyone can see, but everyone who knows me knows I feel.

And one of the objects of my desire has been the experience of walking through the so called Vasari Corridor that begins on an upper level of the Uffizi Gallery, snakes over the Ponte Vecchio, and travels all the way to the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the Arno.

And while I have known for decades that the Corridor exists and is filled with treasure, and that only the elite and their entourages could access this long above-ground long, long hallway, I was not sure I would ever have the opportunity to view it myself.  I might have had a chance in the early days of my career, when I was a Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for then I had a hand signed letter from the Met’s director, Phillipe de Montebello, which worked pretty much like “open seasame” all around the world back then.

The letter invited anyone I presented it to allow me access for whatever I was asking for in the world of art.  Coming from arguably the most important person in the art world at the time, the French director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, that letter had weight, figuratively as well as literally.  I saw how people reacted to it.  The letter was on thick, hand-made, old world letterstock, with the Met’s letterhead engraved upon it, and a gold seal affixed to it.  That letter allowed me to climb the scaffolding erected for the conservators to clean the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  That is how I can to be 5 inches away from Michelangelo’s “Drunkenness of Noah” panel, an experience I will never forget.

But as I was preparing for this winter, my winter in Italy that I have dreamed of almost all of my life, I discovered that the Vasari Corridor is now more or less open and that one can make a reservation in advance online and then visit.  I have one of those tickets, and I am going there tomorrow, on my birthday.  Happy Birthday to me!

I’ll let you know if it was worth the wait!