He turns 100 and treats himself to a visit to the Uffizi for his birthday

A special gift to celebrate his 100th birthday: to visit the Uffizi. This was the wish of Giorgio Allori, a centenarian from Livorno who wanted to treat himself to a visit to his favorite museum for his 100th birthday. A native of Livorno, born in 1922, after September 8, 1943, fresh out of the Military Academy in Modena, he did not join the Republic of Salò: so he was taken prisoner and interned for more than two years in Nazi prison camps. Freed at the end of the war, he returned to Italy, advancing his military career to the rank of general. Throughout his life he cultivated a passion for art.

“I owe it to my father Giulio,” Allori recounted. “By job he was a banker, but in his spare time he devoted himself to painting. Thanks to him I got to know the Uffizi when I was not yet 10 years old, almost a century ago: it was a very different place from today, we must have been a total of 50 people visiting it,” he said, smiling.

During the twentieth century Giorgio returned to the Gallery many times, however since 1992 he has not had a chance to do so. So, 30 years after his last visit, he asked his family for it as a 100th birthday present: and to welcome him upon his arrival he found director Eike Schmidt, who accompanied him along the way. In front of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, applause broke out among the people in the room for the exceptional visitor, who finally allowed himself a selfie with the director in the Terrazzo delle Carte Geografiche, in front of the splendid view in pietre dure of the port of Livorno, his hometown.

Carlo Allori visiting the Uffizi

Carlo Allori visiting the Uffizi with

He turns 100 and treats himself to a visit to the Uffizi for his birthday

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