2023-12-10 16:53:30
The number of visitors to the Uffizi has risen from 3 million when Eike Schmidt began her tenure as director in 2015 to an expected five million this year, with the German art historian newly granted Italian citizenship and set to leave the post on the eve of next Christmas. The English newspaper “The Times” writes this in an article published today, in which it recalls that the task of the first foreign director in the 442-year history of the Florentine museum was “to increase the number of visitors, not to discourage them”.
But the Uffizi, like many other Italian heritage sites, “was in full crisis” in 2015. Schmidt thus decided that the numbers should not be reduced, but reoriented. “In general, growing numbers are not a bad thing but you have to look very carefully if the numbers are only growing in some places, while others are empty, or if they are limited to a particular time of year,” Schmidt tells the “Times “.
“In his eight years in office he oversaw extensive changes, changes that resulted in more visitors but also less overcrowding,” writes the London newspaper. In 2018 the Uffizi became the first museum in Italy with dynamic prices: the entrance fee (25 euros) is more than halved in the so-called low season period, with the ticket costing 12 euros from 10 January to 20 February 20 and from November 10th to December 20th. Early arrivals are discounted in high season, at 19 euros before 8.45am, while the winter exhibitions keep the flow of visitors going all year round. “It helps deseasonalize visits,” Schmidt explains. “Paris and London don’t have a low season, but Florence does.”
Artemisia Gentileschi, Gentileschi points out, has become “the poster girl” for one of Schmidt’s other crusades: diversifying the collection and its visitors. When she arrived, seven out of eight works by Gentileschi were in the museum’s storage, while now they are all on display. Visitors to the first floor in search of Titian’s Venus of Urbino are greeted by “The Annunciation by Plautilla Nelli, a 16th-century nun painter. And a new wing of self-portraits is full of female faces. “Museums are a mirror of society,” says Schmidt.
But its mission to attract young people has not been a walk in the park. His decision to bring influencer Chiara Ferragni to the Uffizi in 2020 was met with derision by some, but his visit, along with the museum’s work, has been credited with tripling the number of visitors aged between 19 and 25 years old.
The Uffizi Gallery, the Times always writes, “didn’t even have a website when Schmidt first entered the museum. More visitors means more money, and Schmidt has spent it on redesigning the Gallery. “Some of the more works important parts of the collection were in very small spaces and created bottlenecks,” recalls Schmidt, who among other things had interior doors added, restored the chronological layout and changed the lighting “to add subliminal messages.” It is in dim light the Leonardo Da Vinci room to discourage selfies.
Directors of Italy’s major museums can only serve for eight years (although they can return after a further four) and Schmidt is in the running to take over the directorship of the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. But he is also thinking of running for mayor of Florence, as the centre-right coalition proposed to him. Will he miss his work at the Uffizi? “It will depend on how my successor behaves. But I could also return,” Eike Schmidt told the Times.
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