Florence’s Uffizi gallery (pictured) has become the most visited cultural institution in Italy for the first time.
Last year, the gallery welcomed some 1.7 million visitors, and overtook the likes of Rome’s Colosseum, the ruins of Pompeii, the Vatican Museums and other well-known Italian sites according to II Giornale dell’Arte.
The Colosseum was second with about 90,000 fewer visitors.
Eike Schmidt, the German-born director of the gallery, has changed things up at Uffizi since he began his tenure in 2015. Schmidt changed the way the gallery sold and scheduled its entry tickets and added more modern pieces to the collections on display.
A new ticketing system was implemented in 2018 and allowed visitors to purchase or pick up tickets at the first office, where they are issued an entry time based on factors like time of year and weather. Visitors could then leave and come back without having to wait in line for long periods of time.
In December last year, Schmidt said the Uffizi team was working towards named ticketing to help combat ticket touts.
The Uffizi houses works from some of the best-known Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio and Raphael.
Despite the gallery’s history, which can be traced back to the 16th century, Schmidt has opened up to include more female artists and works from those from under-represented social, cultural and racial groups.
The gallery’s most visited show, which attracted more than 435,000 visitors, was focused on the works of artist and sculptor Giuseppe Penone.
Image: Tamara Malaniy on Unsplash