ROME – The director of Italy's Uffizi Galleries expects a boom in visitors after coronavirus restrictions end, judging by what happened after previous emergencies closed down one of the world’s most popular museums.
Museum director Eike Schmidt recalled that after the Arno River in Florence flooded in 1966 and shuttered the museum, the number of visitors to the Uffizi jumped from 1 million to 1.5 million in 1968. “Over the long term, I don’t see a drop in interest in visiting museums,” Schmidt said, speaking by video hookup with Rome-based foreign journalists on Monday.
A form of social distancing the Uffizi implemented two years ago — not to guard against viral contagion but to discourage crowds from bunching up in front of popular