Walking the Uffizi's Secret Corridors

The Uffizi was never meant to be a museum. Its long corridors were built for clerks and magistrates, and you can still feel that measured, administrative rhythm as you walk them.

Then the rooms open up, and suddenly you're standing before Botticelli's Venus, wind-blown and impossibly calm. People go quiet here without being asked.

Further along, an unfinished Adoration by Leonardo da Vinci shows the bones of a painting — brown underdrawing, ghostly faces, ideas still forming.