Maria Maddalena de' Medici

Born disfigured, she was christened aged nine. On May 24, 1621 she entered the Palazzo della Crocetta, attached to the Convento della Crocetta (Convent of the Little Cross, now the National Archaeological Museum), though she never took the monastic vows. On her death at only 33 she was buried there.

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, above all, without any need to cross the street and expose herself to public gaze. Today four arches of one of these passages remain, one opposite the Ospedale degli Innocenti, one above via della Pergola, one above via Laura (to reach another monastery), and one into the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (where, sitting in a small chamber at the end of the passage, she could watch the mass through a grate in the left wall of the nave). In the Palazzo della Crocetta was a similar, long elevated corridor, called the corridoio mediceo, which Maddalena used to move amongst the remaining first floor rooms. This corridor was reminiscent of the Vasariano.

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