Maria Maddalena de'Medici

- https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Maddalena_de%27_Medici

Maria Maddalena de' Medici (Florence, 29 June 1600 – Florence, 28 December 1633) was an Italian noblewoman, the eighth daughter of Ferdinando I and Christina of Lorraine, making her the sister of Cosimo II.

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

Maria Maddalena had difficulties climbing stairs, and so the rooms built for her at the monastery by the architect Giulio Parigi consisted of 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 was administered 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.