Florence's iconic Uffizi Gallery
reopened on Thursday after a 77-day COVID-linked closure.
"If you want to play truant," Director Eike Schmidt appealed to
students using a Florentine dialect phrase, "fare forca", "then
come and do it here".
Visitors to the Uffizi, as well as enjoying its matchless
Florentine Renaissance collection, will be able to see a
masterpiece by Joseph Wright of Derby, loaned by the National
Gallery in London, 'An Experiment On A Bird Inserted Into a
Pneumatic Pump'.
They may also take in the archaeological show 'Empresses,
Matrons, Freed Slaves, The Faces And Secrets Of Roman Women'.
A tourist guide and a Florentine woman were the first back into
the celebrated museum.
"It's moving for me to be back in here, it's like coming home,"
said the guide.
The visitor, a 55-year-old woman, said "I came back to see my
favourite works, which I hadn't seen for so long".
Schmidt said "welcome back to the Uffizi after 77 days, the
longest closure since the Second World War.
"The crisis is not yet behind us but we have this as a signal,
the importance of culture and direct access to culture".
Democratic Party Senate Whip Andrea Marcucci said the reopening
of the storied Florentine gallery "is one of the few pieces of
news that warm your heart in this period and is also a beautiful
sign of hope. We'll succeed in getting through this nightmare".
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