Time.news – Four and a half million euros (about 4.8 million dollars), the largest payment ever made by a private individual to a Florentine museum: the beneficiaries are the Uffizi Galleries. This immense act of sponsorship was carried out by US patron Veronika Atkins.
The huge sum will be used to completely restore the Amphitheater of the Boboli Gardens, as part of the extensive ‘Boboli 2030’ program to relaunch the Medici greenery. The operations will start in the coming months, and will last between two and three years.
Double objective, that of protection, or to restore the many and varied architectural, sculptural and plant components of this evocative but very delicate space to their best conditions; and that of the enhancementor to ensure at the same time, the recovery of its original vocation to host shows, and in particular opera music.
The amphitheater was originally conceived in purely vegetal forms by Eleonora da Toledo, who commissioned the sculptor, architect and set designer Niccolo’ Tribolo with its construction. From 1621 to 1634 architectural elements were gradually added, while the first theatrical use was on the occasion of the wedding party of Margherita de’ Medici with Odoardo Farnese in 1628. In the following centuries, the amphitheater became the venue par excellence for the grand ducal festivities – up to the last one, commissioned by Leopold II in 1839 (two decades before the end of the grand duchy).
A first recovery of the Amphitheater took place in the thirties of the twentieth century, when it was also used to revive the opera. In fact, it was precisely in this space that in June 1937 – for the first time in modern times – Claudio Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea was staged, with the scenography designed by Giovanni Michelucci: the architect of the Santa Maria Novella station, but also the one who after the Second World War (together with Carlo Scarpa and Ignazio Gardella) designed and set up the Sala del Trecento in the Uffizi. In 1960 and again in July 1965, Franco Zeffirelli chose the Boboli Amphitheater to stage Jacopo Peri’s Euridice. At the time, the New York Times especially praised the perfect acoustics of this space.
Veronica Atkins is among the best known sponsors and patrons in the world in the field of music, but not only, given that in recent years her support activity for the Uffizi Galleries has grown. Through the Friends of the Uffizi Galleries, and working with their executive director, Lisa Marie Conte Brown, Atkins funded the restoration of the Uffizi Terrace of Maps, the Florentine museum’s Valois tapestry series, and the Sala di Bona at the Palazzo Pitti.
Last October, he donated one of the best pianos in the world for concerts in the Sala Bianca of the former Medici palace. On that occasion she was awarded the Keys to the city of Florence by the deputy mayor Alessia Bettini, in the presence of the consul general of the United States of America, Ragini Gupta, of the president of the Amici degli Uffizi and of the Friends of the Uffizi Galleries, Maria Vittoria Rimbotti Colonna , and the director of the Uffizi Galleries, Eike Schmidt. Among many other honors and responsibilities, Veronica Atkins serves as Managing Director on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, she is president of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Foundation, and supports many other prestigious cultural organizations. She was a major donor to La Scala’s production of Boris Godunov last December.