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Eike Schmidt (Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, 1968). Art historian, since 2005 he directs the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It is the first non-Italian who has been in charge of that mythical museum since 250 years ago it opened its doors to the public.

Is he really the first non-Italian director in the two and a half centuries of life that the Uffizi Gallery has just completed? Yes, it is. And not only that: my predecessors were not only all Italian but with the exception of Luigi Lanzi, director of the Uffizi Gallery in the 18th century and originally from the Marche region, they were all Florentine or at least Tuscan. Even in the Habsburg-Lorraine period (dynasty that between 1737 and 1859 had among its domains the Grand Duchy of Tuscany) there were Austrian directors, they were always Florentines. Not being Italian, is it an advantage or a disadvantage to do their job ? Sometimes it is an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage. I think for example that some of my provisions could not have been carried out if I had not had the excuse that I am German and that I have a German mentality. We Germans have a reputation for being stubborn, and sometimes that has been very good for me. And what is a disadvantage? There really aren't many disadvantages. It is true that people know that I am not Florentine. But in my team there are people from many places and there are members of some of the great Tuscan families. The Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace, both under their baton, receive more visitors every year. Is it a success or a catastrophe, given the massification that museums increasingly suffer? It is true that the number of people who visit us is increasing, yes. And it is true that that could be good news or bad news. If, for example, our visitors increased in September, a month in which Florence is already full of tourists, it would be terrible news. The luck is that we are growing especially in low season. And in the Uffizi Gallery we grow very slowly and when last year we launched the new rates, we even had a slight fall. Large groups have experienced a sharp reduction, and that is good news. They have managed to reduce the number of groups by paying them to enter the Uffizi Gallery, have they not? They are several things. On the one hand, groups of more than eight people are forced to pick up microphones and headphones so that they do not disturb others. And groups of more than 15 people also have to pay 70 euros extra, and that makes an important difference. However, the individual tourist, families or small groups of friends do not have to pay more. The result is that we now have more visitors of the latter type and fewer large groups, which are the worst type of visitors, the most superficial, those who come, take a selfie and leave. At least they do not carry a selfie stick. They don't wear it because we don't allow it. They are dangerous for the paintings and even more for the other visitors. When you see people taking a selfie in front of a painting, does it get bad? The problem is that you can put a lot of posters saying that selfies are not allowed and it doesn't matter: people keep doing it to them. But in the Uffizi Gallery we have a trick to fight against selfies ... The typical selfie in the Uffizi Gallery is with Botticelli's Venus, probably the most iconic painting in the museum. That's right. And that we have about twenty works of Botticelli. Before they were exposed in a massive way, one above the other; the way they were displayed reflected the density of visitors in the room. Now there is space between them. And it is also important to try to create new icons, and how do you create new icons? I give you an example. We have now lent "La Madonna della Loggia" by Botticelli to be exhibited in Vladivostok, where many people will never have the opportunity to come to Florence to see that work. That picture will then be exhibited in St. Petersburg and next year he will travel to the United States. When he returns to Florence, that painting will have become an icon for many Russians and Americans, and many will want to come to Florence to see it in situ. What he has achieved is to end the very long queues that were usually there to enter the Gallery of the Uffizi How did he do it? In normal days we have greatly reduced queues. And we have completely eliminated them in the days when the entrance to the museum is free, and that were the worst days, the lines came to last three and a half hours. We have achieved this thanks to an algorithm that we have developed together with the University of Aquila, which has taken us three years to elaborate and that calculates in a scientific way, taking into account several factors and interpreting numerous data, how people behave within the museum to thus avoid exceeding the established number of visitors. In addition, queues in museums are an invitation to terrorists. A queue in the center of a city like Florence is a risk, ending them means increasing security. Outside there are no queues. But is the interior of the Uffizi Gallery overcrowded? We have capacity for a maximum of 900 people, to whom we guarantee a more dignified stay than the one they find in many streets of the center of Florence, where the concentration of people per square meter is usually much higher. In fact, in case of an emergency it is safer to be in our rooms than on the street. How will new technologies affect museums? Will there come a day that it will not be necessary to physically go to a museum to see the works of art? Some expect that to happen, others fear it. But that debate was already raised with the emergence of photography. Walter Benjamin himself thought that with the photograph the original was no longer necessary and that it could be replaced with a photograph. But the truth is that the opposite has happened: since the photography exists, people want to see the original more earnestly. And we continue seeing it with digital technologies. For example, very, very precise reproductions of the Sistine Chapel have been made in Mexico and in a theater on the outskirts of Rome ... But after seeing those reproductions, and seeing them in better conditions than the original looks, people He doesn't want to see the original. On the contrary: all the people who have seen these magnificent reproductions are even more eager to see the original. We also upload our works on the Internet and social networks, and that only increases people's desire to see the originals. In fact, we use that tactic to create new icons. On Instagram, for example, people often fall in love with paintings that are not the great masterpieces, which are not famous pieces, and then come to the museum to see the originals.

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