The Uffizi Galleries, the most-visited museum in Italy, is open after three months of COVID-19 lockdown, delighting local art lovers who don't have to jostle with throngs of tourists.
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Uffizi director Eike Schmidt says the government-ordered closure of museums during coronavirus containment measures meant 1 million fewer visitors and 12 million euros less revenue for that period.
Now, a limit of 450 people at one time are allowed in the Uffizi's many galleries, chock full of some of the art world's greatest masterpieces.
That means visitors no longer have to elbow their way to admire such masterpieces as Botticelli's "Birth of Venus."
Visitors to the highly popular Vatican Museums, which reopened two days earlier after lockdown, similarly could appreciate opportunities rarely available in the past. These include enjoying Michelangelo's frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapels without many other tourists jockeying for a spot where they can crane their neck to observe the masterpiece overhead.
As an added bonus, the Vatican Museums visitors can now see work confirmed, after several years of delicate cleaning and restoration, to be painted by Raphael shortly before his death in 1520.
The Vatican had planned to unveil the "rediscovery" of Raphael's work at an international convention of art experts in April. But the coronavirus outbreak forced that plan to be scrapped.
Instead, rank-and-file art lovers who visit the rooms of the Vatican decorated by Raphael, can now admire the feminine figures.
Australian Associated Press