New Board Appointed for Florence’s Uffizi Galleries

Italy’s Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli has appointed a new board of directors for Florence’s Uffizi Galleries, ending a months-long vacancy after the previous board’s mandate expired on 31 December 2025.

The board will serve for the 2026–2031 term and includes art historian Carmen Bambach, political scientist Alessandro Campi, senior civil servant Carlo Deodato and former Tuscan politician Stefano Mugnai. Uffizi director Simone Verde is a member by right and completes the five-person body.

The board is responsible for defining the museum’s research priorities and technical and strategic guidelines, in line with directions issued by the Ministry of Culture.

Among the new appointees, Bambach is one of the world’s leading experts on Leonardo da Vinci and currently heads the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Campi is professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Perugia and director of the Italian Institute for the History of the Risorgimento in Rome.

Deodato serves as Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s Office and is regarded as an expert in public administration and administrative law. Mugnai is a former member of the Italian Parliament and former regional councillor in Tuscany who was the centre-right candidate for president of the region in 2015.

The appointments restore the museum’s full governance structure after several months during which the institution was managed solely by director Verde.

Major Lorenzo de’ Medici exhibition planned

The Uffizi is meanwhile preparing a major exhibition dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, one of the most influential political and cultural figures of Renaissance Florence.

The exhibition, titled Magnifico 1492, is scheduled to open in autumn 2026 and will bring together more than 100 works from international collections. According to the museum, the exhibition aims to reconstruct Lorenzo’s art collection and explore his role as a patron during the Renaissance.

Future of outreach projects remains uncertain

As the museum plans its upcoming programme, questions remain about some of its territorial initiatives.

As reported by local media, projects linked to the Uffizi’s outreach strategy, including parts of the Uffizi Diffusiprogramme and the Terre degli Uffizi initiative developed with Fondazione CR Firenze, appear to have slowed or been put on hold. No official announcement has been made by the museum regarding the future of these programmes.

Despite this, the relationship between the Uffizi and the wider Tuscan territory remains significant. Many churches, historic buildings and cultural institutions across Tuscany continue to house works originating from the Medici collections and the Florentine state collections that later became part of the Uffizi.

The museum also continues to lend artworks for temporary exhibitions. Recent examples include Raphael’s Madonna del Baldacchino, which was displayed in Pescia, and two paintings by the seventeenth-century Florentine artist Carlo Dolci, currently exhibited at the Ducal Palace in Massa.

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