Eight years and not hearing them. Actually yes. Cecilie Hollberg is also moved – just a redness of the eyes but it is indicative – as she bids farewell to Florence after 8 years at the helm of the Accademia Gallery. She is moved and says again: «We’ll see each other again» she says, confirming that she will apply to return to via Ricasoli.
For the moment, for her who saw her double mandate expire yesterday, there is no extension: not even the 45 days granted to her colleagues Eike Schmidt (Uffizi) and Paola D’Agostino (Bargello), as anticipated by our newspaper. Her role, ad interim, passes into the hands of the general director of the Museums, Massimo Osanna, who since D’Agostino’s definitive departure has also led the Bargello from Rome.
Soon, as the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano announced a few days ago, the notice to choose the new number one will be published of a museum structure that will be more complex: it will include the museum in via Ricasoli created to accommodate the David of Michelangelo has become much more and the five museums of the Bargello complex which also includes the Museum of Palazzo Davanzati and Casa Martelli, Orsanmichele and the Medici Chapels. Both Paola D’Agostino and Cecilie Hollberg will most likely show up for this competition, but Cecilie Hollberg is now leaving her home in Florence. “It’s state property, so I’m leaving,” she says.
The end of his mandate is an opportunity to draw the threads of what has been done in recent years. And that’s no small thing. Because in this double mandate the German director has undertaken to renovate and rearrange the entire museum, completing the work that has been awaited for years. Let’s remember some stages starting from the first which is certainly the construction of the new air conditioning system which has healed an unacceptable vulnerability for a modern museum: in 2017 due to the great heat, in the rooms, some tourists also felt ill and on that occasion they were distributed of the yellow fans provided by the Academy.
The list of works also includes the rearrangement and new lighting (with blue walls) of the Sala del Colossus and that of Bartolini’s plaster casts; the adaptation of the electrical systems, the restoration of many pieces of the collection and the reorganization of the Prison Gallery.
The list is long and also includes attendance data and growth in ticket revenue: «From 2015 to today – declares Hollberg in this regard – admissions increased by 42 percent (from 1,415,397 in 2015 to 2,013,582 in 2023) thanks also to the choice to schedule some evening openings in the summer and low season”.
As for the revenues grew by 113% (it went from 9,240,281.69 euros in 2015 to 19,686,440.44 in 2023 as stated in the report requested by the director at the end of her long period of management). A period that had an interruption in 2019, when the Academy was stripped of its autonomy by the then Minister of Culture Alberto Bonisoli who gave the task of leading it to Eike Schmidt, on the eve of August. A stop that lasted six months: Hollberg’s return occurred when the Bonisoli decree was canceled at the end of January 2020. The outgoing director only mentioned this unpleasant episode in the press conference. Just as she recalls that these results, of which she is proud, were obtained even though in all these years the problem of the organizational structure has never been resolved: «We are still at less than 100 units» she recalls in thanking the collaborators who, despite if in small numbers, they accompanied and followed her during these 8 years.
The last thought goes to the digitization of collections and the trials won against those who improperly used the image of David. Then the greeting which is a goodbye. For the moment he will fly to Germany «where I will go to visit my mother» he says.
