Now, who doesn’t enjoy a good secret passageway? The Palazzo Vecchio is veritably riddled with them. One of the Medicis (Francesco?) was an aspiring scientist (he seems like a nice self-effacing chap, except that he poisoned his brother – but you never know, perhaps the brother deserved it), but his studies were considered heretical back in the day (as our guide said “remember, this was even before Galileo – who said something true and …”), so he had a little study built that no servants entered, and that had various secret doors and passageways leading off it.
My usual complaint of secret passageways is that you can always see the “secret” doors that lead to them – they might have been invisible at one time, but years and use have worn the edges, widened the cracks, or left the door more or less faded than the surroundings. Not here. Can you spot the doors?
Well, you can probably spot the one that’s open, but trust me, there are more, and I was totally unaware until our guide open sesame’d. It’s due to my hero Vasari, who as well as painting and writing, was something of an architect and engineer. Now find Waldo.
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Palazzo Vecchio
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4 comments:
Is this picture taken inside the secret study? Those are very elegant hidden doors. For a while, "Secret passage" was the most exciting pair of words in my childhood vocabulary.
I think there should be secret passageways in all houses... Wouldn't that just make everything more exciting? ;-)
This reminds me of all the German castles I have toured. I was always SO dissapointed that certain doors were locked and not part of the tour. I would lag behind the group, trying to peek through key holes and behind curtains to try to satisfy my curiousity for all the hidden places.
Yes, the pic is in the secret study. Very interesting tour. When I was a kid, my cousins and I would occasionally sneak into the roped off/staff only areas in castles, but it was invariable a disappointment - it's usually where they make the tea.
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