The Uffizi 2 could be born in a place linked to the centuries-old history of the Medici family, about 60 km from Florence: Villa l’Ambrogiana in Montelupo Fiorentino. In this regard, the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, has given his willingness to set up a technical table at the ministry to evaluate the feasibility of the project, in order to enhance the historic building with a new exhibition venue with many works that are now kept in the deposits of the Uffizi Gallery.
The announcement came this afternoon at the end of the inspection that Minister Sangiuliano made with the director of the Uffizi, Eike Schmidt, the president of the Tuscany Region, Eugenio Giani, and the mayor of Montelupo Fiorentino, Paolo Masetti. The visit was also attended by the parliamentarians of the Brothers of Italy Giovanni Donzelli, national head of the party’s organization, and Paolo Marcheschi together with other exponents of Fdi, including the group leader in the Region, Francesco Torselli. In the intentions of the minister, the technical table should deal with the enhancement and recovery of the Villa l’Ambrogiana in order to create the branch of the Uffizi. At the same time there is the idea of working in agreement with other ministries to verify the accessibility of the structure, with the infrastructural upgrading of the Florence-Pisa-Livorno line. A necessary verification given the numerous problems that have emerged several times on the connecting artery.
The Villa dell’Ambrogiana, until 2017 seat of the judicial psychiatric hospital, was one of the favorite residences of Cosimo III de’ Medici. Already in the last years of the Lorraine era, the building had been transformed to house the asylum for criminals, a use which continued for over a century. The recovery of the Medici villa of the Ambrogiana can count on 12 million euros from the Ministry of Culture, to which another 12 million from the Region will be added, aimed at the restoration and reopening of the complex and its splendid park to the public.
The minister, Giani said, paid “maximum attention” to the proposal also made by the Tuscany Region to enhance and disseminate the immense heritage collected in the Uffizi Gallery, part of which, until today, remains invisible because it is closed in the deposits of the museum.
“The minister – explained Giani – said he was impressed by the proposal from ‘Uffizi Diffuso’ which I had had the opportunity to talk to him about in recent days, during a meeting prior to his visit. He assured us that he is very determined to go ahead on the idea of what he calls Uffizi 2 and which I call ‘Uffizi Toscana’, or rather the idea of finding other places in which to exhibit and enhance the enormous heritage of unexhibited works and, what is really important, he has expressed the will to build this project together”.
President Giani also accompanied the minister on the Florentine visit to Villa di Careggi, the Medici complex, owned by the Region, dear to Lorenzo the Magnificent who died here, aged only 42, in April 1492. “It is in this place, symbol of the Renaissance, that the widespread museum will be able to see its first important realization”, commented Giani.
“In Careggi – explained the president Giani again – works are underway in the Limonaia, which will be followed by those on the Villa itself and on the garden, for which we use 1 million euros of funds from the Pnrr. If the project goes ahead in expected times we will be able to have by 2025, early 2026, here the first house of the Uffizi diffuse”. Speaking with Minister Sangiuliano during the visit, the Honorable Giovanni Donzelli launched the proposal to create a museum dedicated to the history of the Medici family in the Medici Villa of Careggi, bankers and patrons of Humanism and the Renaissance.
The interventions already carried out on the Medici Villa of Careggi, including the completion of the restoration of the facade, amount to just under 2 million euros against a total planned investment of nearly 9 million. The Medici Villa of Careggi is one of the oldest among those belonging to the Medici family. Here Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had chosen it as his favorite residence, brought together the circle of the Neoplatonic Academy making the building the cultural and artistic center par excellence of the early Renaissance, frequented by the major humanists of the time.
(by Paolo Martini)