The Uffizi Complex in Florence has become the most visited cultural site in Italy
The Uffizi surpasses the Colosseum for the number of tourists in 2021, the first time for the famed Florentine museums complex that also houses Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens. The annual ranking was created in The Giornale dell’Arte art magazine and The Art Newspaper.
The total number of people visiting 2021 the Uffizi was around 1.7M, which is almost 100,000 more than the Colosseum, which was ranked the second (the Colosseum was consistently for many years the most-visited attraction in Italy, including in 2020, which was the year of the pandemic).
The number refers to those who visit the Uffizi Gallery, home to the most famous works, including Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera, Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo, and Leonardo’s Annunciation and Adoration of the Magi, to name some. It also refers to the Boboli Gardens and the four museums located in Pitti Palace (the Palatine Gallery as well as of the Palatine Gallery, Treasury of the Grand Dukes, and The Museum of Costume and Fashion and the Gallery of Modern Art).
The third spot comes third is the Archeological Park of Pompeii, which has also received more than a million visitors. Then the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence and The Reggia di Caserta, with less than 500,000 visitors.
The first time that the Uffizi also defeated its counterpart, the Vatican Museums, which, technically are not located in Italy; however, they are part of the Vatican state.
Furthermore to this, the Uffizi was also the one that attracted the highest number of people to its special exhibitions in the past, such as the celebration of the contemporary artist Giuseppe Penone, known for his massive tree sculptures proved to be extremely successful, and so were the events that welcomed Leo X back to Florence at Pitti Palace, linked with the conclusion of the Raphael celebrations in 2020.
Some attribute the growth in Uffizi’s complex to Uffizi complex on the improvements made in the past by Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt, who has stated that these positive figures were the product of a “team effort,” commenting that “We are back on an upward trajectory that bodes well for the future.”
Alongside allowing space for contemporary art inside what is known as the sacred art museum for Renaissance art. Schmidt organized exhibitions featuring female artists and artists from underrepresented groups. Under his guidance, the Uffizi also introduced the modern ticketing process and has reopened works out of storage and be displayed and also created an initiative called the Uffizi Diffusi initiative to lend some of its works to museums throughout Tuscany as well as also opened rooms previously shut as well as sections of that of the Uffizi as well as Pitti Palace.
The ‘free entry on the 1st Sunday of each month’s event was revived after a halt caused by the pandemic. It was a record-breaking event for the Uffizi, which rated it as the top-rated weekend in the Uffizi since 2019.
