Meloni wants former Uffizi Gallery director as mayor of Florence

German-born Eike Schmidt, 56, is a man with a genius for public art management. An extraordinary museum director, he has brought the Uffizi Gallery in Florence into the 21st century by applying new museum management techniques. Schmidt is a scholarly, open-minded man – avowedly anti-fascist. He is also German. In theory, these factors would fail to make him the ideal candidate for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ultra-right Brothers of Italy to put forward for mayor. But it is precisely because of his centralist image that Meloni wants him, and he is giving the candidacy some thought. For Meloni, having Schmidt on side seems one of the few ways to seize control of this apparently unassailable stronghold of the left for almost 50 years in elections expected to be held in early June.

Schmidt was the director of the Uffizi for nine years, a position he left recently in order to take the reins at the Capodimonte museum in Naples. During those nine years, he became a leading public figure not just in Florence but in the whole of Italy. The size and influence of the Uffizi Renaissance gallery, which when set up by the Medici family was something like the west wing of the mayor’s headquarters in the Palazzo Vecchio, made it the perfect podium from which Schmidt could weigh in on public debates, thereby building a significant public profile.

Soon after being appointed director of the Uffizi Gallery, Eike Schmidt – the first foreigner to govern one of Italy’s greatest cultural institutions – grabbed a microphone and sent a message to pickpockets and petty thieves through loud speakers in the streets. For the first time, someone was tackling the chaos at the museum entrance. Schmidt’s boldness was yet another indication of his interventionist, and somewhat populist and popular, idea of how to run the museum, which receives almost four million visitors a year. No matter that, three days later, the Florence police showed up at his office and handed him a fine of approximately €300 for speaking out in public without a permit. The next morning, Schmidt went to the City Hall and paid the debt.

Recently a nationalized Italian, Schmidt has not yet made a decision on whether to run for mayor. “Look, I have no news,” he told EL PAÍS. “It’s something I still have to finish thinking about. Nothing’s decided and I don’t have a deadline for coming to a decision.” A spokesman for the Brothers of Italy has confirmed that the candidacy is open while Schmidt’s new assignment managing the museum in Naples will not influence the decision. “They are separate things. They have nothing to do with each other,” said the spokesman.

Cultural hegemony

The seduction of Schmidt, who maintains a good relationship with the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, is also part of the strategy of the radical right to give a central role to culture in its political program. It is an idea that connects with the old postulates of the philosopher Antonio Gramsci on cultural hegemony, traditionally attributed to the left but which Meloni’s party aims to appropriate for itself.

A self-declared moderate, Schmidt believes that Florence faces two fundamental issues: security and infrastructure. Though mass tourism and the progressive emptying of the center in favor of tourist apartments and hotels is recognized as a huge problem, it is not being considered a priority. “I would not limit visits to the city,” Schmidt said several days ago. “But you can work on the idea of scheduling them.” He pointed out that the Uffizi had resorted to this formula using an algorithm to decongest the museum.

The left has already begun its campaign against Schmidt. The current mayor, Dario Nardella, has accused him of failing to meet the deadlines for reforms at the Uffizi. Other voices assert Schmidt secured the post at the prestigious Capodeimonte museum in exchange for running in Florence, so that if he lost the electoral race he would have something to fall back on. Obviously, Schmidt denies this, though his return to Florence shortly after taking up the post in Naples has raised more than a few eyebrows.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition