Maria Maddalena de' Medici

Maria Maddalena de' Medici was a Tuscan princess, the eighth child and third daughter of Ferdinando I and Christina of Lorraine, making her the sister of Cosimo II.

Life

Born disabled, she was christened at the age of nine. On 24 May 1621, she entered the Palazzo della Crocetta, attached to the Convento della Crocetta, though she never took the monastic vows. When she died, she was buried there.

Aboveground passages

Maria Maddalena had difficulties climbing stairs. The rooms built for her at the monastery by the architect Giulio Parigi were connected by a series of raised passages above street level across which she could move without use of stairs and, as an added bonus, there was no need to cross the uneven and crowded street. Today four arches of one of these passages remain. They resemble covered bridges or skybridges between upper floors of buildings:

one opposite the Ospedale degli Innocenti,
one above via della Pergola,
one above via Laura, and
one into the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata.

In the Palazzo della Crocetta was a similar, long elevated corridor, called the corridoio mediceo, which Maddalena used to move among the remaining first floor rooms. This corridor was reminiscent of the Vasariano.