The Uffizi Gallery in Florence was incredibly busy before the pandemic. To combat overtourism and to celebrate Tuscany’s heritage, part of the collection will move to other museums in the province.
Overtourism
On its busiest days, the Uffizi has about 12,000 visitors, making it one of the most popular museums in the world. Because of this, the lines are long and the visits often crowded. Tourists have apparently been behaving so badly in Florence that the city created a campaign to motivate respectful behaviour. The director of the Uffizi wants to combat the Florentine overtourism by moving a number of paintings by well-known artists to other museums in Tuscany.
Uffizi Diffusi
This project is called ‘Uffizi Diffusi’, or ‘scattered Uffizi’. The Uffizi’s director, Eike Schmidt, has said that this ‘scattering’ will have a number of benefits. Not only will it hopefully draw visitors away from Florence, it will also boost smaller museums in the region. Finally, this project has an underlying mission of connecting Tuscan heritage. The paintings concerned in this plan will all move to museums in towns they have a connection with, like the hometown of their respective painter. This will allow visitors to view art in its own context, according to Schmidt.
“The Uffizi is not an isolated museum in the middle of nowhere, but is the culmination of a landscape full of marvel and art and natural beauty”
Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi museum
Uffizi Diffusi will get started this summer, and about 60 exhibition spaces have already been found, with possibly more to come.
Source: CNN, Lonely Planet. This item was brought to our attention by European Heritage Youth Ambassador Elena Cautiș.
To read more about tourism, click here or check out one of the tags below: