A small sign of return to normal is the gradual reopening of museums and exhibitions .
We go back to climbs on the Tower of Pisa. The famous monument in Piazza dei Miracoli reopens to public view from Saturday 30 May, from 10 am to 6 pm. "Access will be allowed exactly as before the lockdown but only with a reduction in the number of people for each group, from 35 to 15", explained Gianluca De Felice, secretary of the Pisan primatial opera that oversees the monuments in the square of the Miracolil, Unesco site, which, like the Tower, all return to be visited, with the exception of the Sinopie Museum for which the rearrangement is underway.
All visitors who enter the Tower will be provided with an electronic device that will emit visual and sound signals to warn that the interpersonal distance of one meter is not being respected. It will be mandatory to wear masks. Access also to other monuments: no more than 150 visitors at the same time in the Cathedral, 100 at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo and the Baptistery and 250 at the monumental cemetery. Meanwhile, 15 reservations have already arrived this morning for the Tower.
The museum of cinema reopens in Turin, there will be a software for the management of visitors.
Also in the Savoy city Palazzo Madama reopens. "What a thrill, a small step towards normality! It's encouraging. It's nice to see the museum alive again." To speak in a video interview with ANSA, is Clelia Arnaldi di Balme, curator of Palazzo Madama, who from today May 28 reopens its doors. It is the first civic museum in Turin to do so. "Our visitors come back several times, they will have to learn a new path that allows interpersonal distances. And they will have to use hand sanitizers", explains Arnaldi di Balme. At the entrance of the building, a UNESCO heritage site, there is a thermo-scanner for measuring the temperature, "but now - observes the curator - we are used to it". The visit is "more solitary, but still very accurate and complete", continues Arnaldi di Balme, explaining that the museum "remained active in phase 1 to preserve the works thanks to a rotation of the conservatories. The situation - he underlines - has always been under control". E 'of the past few hours the announcement of the extension of the exhibition on Mantegna: "It was appreciated by the public before closing, so we are happy". Despite the difficulties of the moment, there is confidence in the future: "We have been penalized but only by reacting can we overcome this moment - he concludes -. Museums will have to invent more internal activities, which will interest visitors, initially locals, who will be attracted by initiatives not in attendance but that catch the eye ".
In Florence, Palazzo Pitti reopens instead. About seventy visitors for the first morning of reopening. The former Medici palace, which houses, among the various museums, the Palatine gallery with Renaissance and Baroque paintings, and the modern art gallery with works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is accessible again after more than two and a half months of lockdown . To greet the first groups of visitors, this morning at 8.30, was the director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt himself. "Palazzo Pitti today reopens with its wonderful museums and with two beautiful exhibitions - he said -: the first large monographic dedicated to the seventeenth-century painter Giovanna Garzoni and Ai Piedi degli dei, the exhibition dedicated to ancient footwear and the influence of the their style on cinema and contemporary fashion. Furthermore, now that the great national exhibition on Raphael at the Scuderie del Quirinale is about to reopen, to which the Uffizi have lent about fifty works, Palazzo Pitti remains the treasure chest with the utmost concentration of works by Urbino to the world. Finally, I would like to remind you of our hourly discount on the ticket: who arrives before nine in the morning pays the ticket half ". In Palazzo Pitti, all national and regional laws apply against the spread of coronavirus. Ticket price unchanged. However, in this first phase of reopening, the times change: to allow the daily sanitization operations, Palazzo Pitti remains open from 8.30 to 13.30. Furthermore, the spaces of the Treasury of the Grand Dukes and of the Porcelain Museum, where for architectural and logistical reasons it is not possible to guarantee compliance with the rules on social distancing, for the moment they will remain closed.
After having already reopened the basilica for the celebration of the masses, the Opera di Santa Croce in Florence returns to welcome visitors of the different identities of the basilica after the lockdown for the coronavirus, a unique place where art and architecture, Franciscan spirituality and the stories of the great Italians. Visitors can enter for free every weekend until June 24, the feast of the patron saint of Florence, San Giovanni. It starts from Saturday 30 May. "After the lockdown - announces Irene Sanesi, president of the Opera di Santa Croce - we have decided to inaugurate a different and more intense relationship with visitors who will be welcomed free of charge during the weekends, for most of the month of June an in-depth experience of discovering the basilica and its thousand-year history also thanks to the use of the new App ". Visits also scheduled for Tuesday 2 June, Republic Day. "Santa Croce represents a common good and a cultural heritage that is part of the collective identity of the country. For this reason it can make an important contribution to bring Florence out of the heavy crisis of this historical phase", underlines Stefano Filipponi, general secretary of the Opera di Holy Cross. Up to 150 people can enter the basilica at the same time and group visits are not yet allowed. It is essential to book the visit using the website of the Opera di Santa Croce (www.santacroceopera.it) in the online booking section (the service is available from 2 pm tomorrow, Friday 29 May). In addition, visitors will also be virtually taken by the hand and accompanied by the new official Santa Croce App created by the Florentine company D'Uva and a useful, simple and intuitive tool that puts all the information for the visit at hand.
In Milan the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana reopens : it reopens on an experimental basis from Saturday 30 to Tuesday 2 June from 11 to 18. For the occasion, the ticket will be 'discounted' at ten euros (8, for the beneficiaries of reductions - free for under 14s accompanied by an adult).