Florence Academy Gallery, CGIL complaint: cardboard fans instead of air conditioning

Florence ’s Fp Cgil denounces the situation at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence: in the famous Florentine museum, which houses Michelangelo’s Davidwithin its walls and is second only to the Uffizi for visitors, there is a lack ofair conditioning, and to remedy the heat, colored cardboard fans are distributed to visitors. The following is the Fp CGIL statement.

For the second summer in a row, a slice of colored cardboard manually operated by the poor hot tourist replaces an air conditioning system that looks more and more like a mirage.
Fp CGIL Firenze denounces once again that at the Accademia Gallery, where accesses have reached record numbers (an average of 6,000 entrances a day with peaks of 10,000) the refrigeration system continues to be absent on the ground floor (Sala del Colosso, Corridoio di Prigioni, Tribuna del David and Gipsoteca).
Already last year, the academy made headlines for discomfort experienced by users and tour guides.
Both last year and this year, the workers’ representatives demanded proactive and immediate action from the administration, proposing the adoption of simple measures such as reducing the attendance ceiling and purchasing portable air conditioners, but the administration continues to make no decisions.
The hand of the relative humidity detectors exceeds 78 percent, when by the acts of policy for the preservation of the artistic heritage, painted boards cannot stay in rooms that exceed 60 percent.
Staying under the skylight of the David’s tribune cannot go on for more than a few minutes before a feeling of sickness and lack of airiness overcomes.
The administration continues to make excuses, shifting the responsibility for the delay in the implementation of the facility to repeated technical inspections by outside firms that to date would not have produced any planning for the intervention, which would also have immediate and total cost coverage, according to the museum management’s declarations of ample budget availability.
It is unacceptable to think that the enjoyment of cultural heritage can be offered under these conditions: perhaps it is thought that it is enough to provide the visitor with a yellow cardboard fan to remedy this situation?
If the ministry and those who represent it on the ground are not concerned about the state of health of workers and visitors perhaps, we are left to wonder, they should at least be concerned about the preservation of the works that with such levels of humidity risk being seriously damaged.
Signed Fp Cgil Frenze

Pictured: Accademia Gallery, Michelangelo’s David. Ph. Credit Finestre Sull’Arte

Florence Academy Gallery, CGIL complaint: cardboard fans instead of air conditioning

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