The Uffizi is the most visited Italian museum in 2021. Still far from pre-pandemic, however

Florence as cultural capital. This is what emerges from the Ranking that the Ministry of Culture draws up on the 30 most visited state-owned museums, monuments and archaeological areas with paid admission each year and that for 2021 sees Florence present in first and fourth place: the Uffizi for the first time stands in first place with as many as 1 million 721 thousand visitors, in second place the Colosseum with about 1 million 700 thousand visitors and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in third place with 1 million 43 thousand tickets taken out. After the only three sites exceeding 1 million visitors, we find another Florentine museum: the Accademia Gallery, which with its Michelangelo’s David in 2021 snatched 446,320 coupons. Florence thus establishes itself even more as the capital of domestic cultural tourism.

The Top 30 most-visited paid state sites is a ranking that at its top inevitably also determines the overall Italian result on the most-visited places of culture, as there are no private museums or those of other entities that reach such numbers. Along with the figure of visitors, the Ministry also collects that on the corresponding receipts, and so we see that the Uffizi collected 13 million 720 thousand euros in one year, the Colosseum archaeological park 16 million 800 thousand euros and Pompeii 11.5 million. The Academy Gallery is around 3 million 860 thousand euros.

Satisfied is the director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt, who tells Finestre sull’Arte, “The Uffizi Galleries are returning extremely quickly practically to the number of visitors we had before the pandemic, including, this our greatest boast, a lot of young people who did not come to the museum before. It is likely, barring a tailspin of the virus which we hope we will not have to witness, that in the near future these numbers will grow again. Certainly succeeding in such a feat has not been easy. An essential element of it has been the tireless efforts of all the members of the great team that keeps this beautiful museum alive and running: only in this way, together, has it been possible to open the new rooms of the sixteenth century in May last year, which were immediately appreciated, to return to organizing many exhibitions of all kinds, from classical antiquity to contemporary, and to put on in a very short time the rich, varied offer of cultural content that we disseminate and will continue to disseminate on the web and social networks as well.”

Going into the details of the ranking, we see that in fifth place is the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Turin, managed by the Foundation, with nearly 400,000 tickets taken away for a total of 3.2 million euros collected. It is followed by the Royal Palace of Caserta with 346 thousand people and nearly 2million nine hundred thousand euros in takings, in seventh place Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este in Tivoli with 283 thousand visitors corresponding to 2million three hundred thousand euros, the National Museum of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome with 240 thousand visitors and 1.9 million euros, also in Rome the Borghese Gallery with 230 admissions and 2 million euros in takings. In tenth place is the Cenacolo Vinciano in Milan, which recorded 221 thousand visits in 2021 and grossed 1 million 960 thousand euros.

The geographic distribution of this top 30 2021 most visited sites sees the municipalities of Florence and Naples ranking 3 times, Rome 4, Milan and Venice 2 and Turin 2. Among the provinces, on the other hand, we find the Metropolitan City of Naples excelling with 6 sites, that of Rome Capital with 5, Florence 3, Venice, Turin and Milan with 2.

The pandemic

People are starting to go to the museum again then, but let’s see where we were before the pandemic broke out from Covid19 to see how far there is to catch up. In 2019 in first place was the Colosseum Archaeological Park, which towered with 7 million 617 thousand people grossing over 57 million euros. The Uffizi, on the other hand, as of 12/31/2019 had brought in about 4.4 million people for revenue of 35.6 million euros; the Pompeii Archaeological Park, on the other hand, 3.9 million people and 41 million euros in revenue. In fourth place is the Accademia Gallery in Florence, which had 1.7 million tickets taken away for a counter value of 15.3 million.

Scrolling down the ranking comparing 2019 and 2021 we see that in fifth place in 2019 was the National Museum of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome with its 1.2 million admissions equivalent to over 10 million two hundred thousand euros. In 2021 it drops to eighth place with 239 thousand admissions and just under 2 million in receipts. In sixth place in 2019 was the Egyptian Museum in Turin with 853 thousand visitors and 6.7 million euros, while in 2021 it is in fifth place with 398 thousand admissions and 3.3 million eruo in receipts. Venaria Reale in 2019 was in seventh place with 837093 tickets and 4.2 million euros, while in 2021 it is in 14th place with 173 thousand visits for 1.4 million euros. The Royal Palace of Caserta in 2019 was in eighth place with 728 thousand visits equivalent to nearly 5 million euros while in 2021 it rose to sixth with 346 thousand visits and 2,882,281 euros in revenue. In ninth place in 2019 saw Villa Adriana at Villa d’Este and in tenth place the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, while in 2021 Villa Adriana is in seventh place and the Archaeological Museum in 13th.

To have a touchstone beyond national borders, we can mention the Louvre Museum, which, with its 60,000 square meters of exhibition space, in 2018 surpassed 10 million visitors in one year, the first paid museum in the world to surpass that threshold of recorded admissions in 12 months. We talked about it here on Windows on Art. New York’s Moma, on the other hand, exceeded 3 million tickets sold before the arrival of Covid and had only 1.6 million in 2021.

But we will discuss this in more detail soon in another Art Windows article.

Below is the full ranking with all the numbers.

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