Schmidt (Uffizi): now enough of evaluating museums on absolute numbers alone. Let's start again in a lower gear

For Eike D. Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries, the post-virus period will also have to lead to a different way of analyzing museum performance. He said this this morning on the sidelines of the presentation of the monographic exhibition on Giovanna Garzoni at Palazzo Pitti, which was to open from March 10 to May 24 but was postponed to the period May 28-June 28.

“Since the initial lockdown,” Schmidt noted, the Uffizi Galleries has lost about 12 million: what must be clear, however, is that even with the opening period coming up we will not do the numbers of previous years, they will be much lower. From the time of the reopening a different count must start, you cannot compare last year’s numbers, we need an analysis not only of the absolute numbers, but also at what pace, in what gear we can re-enter. We come back in first gear; after a few months we will see how to come back second, and so on. For years we have been fixed in fourth and fifth, now we are starting again in the lowest gear, but in full safety, and this is crucial because it allows us to bring forward this very valuable machine."

Schmidt then let it be known that on June 2, Republic Day, the Loggia dei Lanzi will be reopened, one day earlier than the Uffizi Gallery, as a symbol of rebirth and hope. “This June 2,” said the director, “will be a very special Republic Day: that is why we want to celebrate it with a symbolic gesture of rebirth and hope, reopening to the public , one day earlier than the Uffizi Gallery, the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza Signoria.” The Loggia dei Lanzi, Schmidt continued, “is an open-air Uffizi room that is always accessible. It is part of the Uffizi, but it is outdoors, so it is also part of the public space of Florence. Clearly this emergency period, even the Loggia, although always guarded, had to be closed. Now we are reopening it, with this symbolic gesture, dedicated to and in honor of all Florentines and all Italians.”

The director then also spent a few words on the restart of the Raphael exhibition in Rome, beginning with “an immense thank you to museums around the world, to the lenders whose generosity has decided to leave all their works longer in the Raphael exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale, allowing as many people as possible to visit this epochal and unrepeatable exhibition.” The exhibition, Schmidt says, is full as every work is present. “On the very day of the closing, March 8,” said the Uffizi director, "I immediately called the president of Ales Mario De Simoni and told him that the Uffizi would leave their fifty or so works in Rome for as long as necessary, whatever it takes. Well, we have received the same solidarity from so many European museums, from all over the world, and so thanks to this collaboration, this generosity of our sister institutions in the world, it will be possible to leave this epoch-making and unrepeatable exhibition open for the entire period of the three months from June 2 to September 2 and allow as many people as possible to visit it."

Schmidt (Uffizi): now enough of evaluating museums on absolute numbers alone. Let's start again in a lower gear

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