Italy’s Museums Reopen, Offering Vibrating Social-Distancing Necklaces and a New Chance to See Rome’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Raphael Show

Lockdown measures have started to ease in the European nations
hardest hit by coronavirus. Across Italy, museums are opening
their doors to the public again for the first time since
March—though they have to adhere to serious new safety
precautions.

Today, May 19, the Castello di Rivoli in Turin was among the
first of the nation’s museum to allow the public back in. Director
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev expressed optimism about the transition
measures to Artnet News. “Museums are carefully controlled spaces
that have been designed to protect artworks from people,” she said.
“To adapt that to protecting people from people is a small
step.”

Elsewhere, blockbuster shows are starting back up again. The
highly anticipated Raphael
exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale was an early victim
of the lockdown, closing just three days after it opened in March
despite having pre-sold 70,000 tickets. The show includes 120 works
by Raphael, thanks to loans from 52 museums and collections to mark
the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance great’s death. Almost all
of the loans have been extended as needed, according to
the Art Newspaper.
The exhibition will now run from June 2 to August 30.

Visitor Safety and Lost Incomes

Museums that are typically swarmed with visitors from around the
world will now be both eerily and joyfully calm. The Castello di
Rivoli likened the shift to the slow food movement, which requires
a gentler pace of work and, in many ways, more consideration for
process. “I think museums can be the prototype for the new
normal, which I hope only lasts the time of the pandemic because I
actually like the old normal,” adds Christov-Bakarglev.

Yet the lowered visitor numbers will spell financial trouble for
some. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence,
which on a typical spring day would see visitors numbering around
2,600, will only allow 200 people in per day. “We are very
worried,” a spokesperson tells Artnet News.

The visitor numbers and strategies vary depending on the museum.
For the Raphael exhibition, tickets for the show must be booked
online in advance. Groups of six visitors will be taken in by a
guard who will act as a “chaperone,” and groups will head into the
gallery in staggered five-minute intervals. Each group gets 80
minutes with the once-in-a-lifetime show.

At the Galleria Borghese, which reopens today, May 19, to the
public, will allow 120-minute visits of up to 80 people at a time.
“This necessity actually provides an opportunity to appreciate the
Museum’s marvels with more tranquillity,” says the museum in a
statement. And the privately-funding Patrizia Sandretto Re
Rebaudengo reopened on May 18 and allows 15 people at a time.

At the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, a
13th-century Gothic cathedral that is expected to open this week,
free devices will be given out to visitors to notify them when they
are not social distancing. The novel gadget, which will dangle
around visitors’ necks before being disinfected between wears,
flashes and vibrates when visitors get too close to each other. It
is the first institution to introduce such a device.

In a statement, the cathedral boasted of being first in the
world to use the technology in the museum context, adding that
“this system guarantees the maximum of security and comfort during
the visit.” The EGOpro Social Distancing necklace
by Florence-based company Advance Microwave Engineering has
four red lights that begin to turn on and flash in succession,
depending on closeness.

The Castello di Rivoli, which operates with a relatively small
budget of €6 million says it lost €1 million due to the
lockdown. Christov-Bakargiev says the institution had to invest
about €60,000 to upgrade its premises to meet sanitary guidelines.
That coupled with the loses incurred by fewer ticket sales over the
usually bustling summer months will spell trouble for many museums
and institutions.

The loses incurred will be weathered differently depending on
the scale and backing of the museum. The Italian federal government
issued a €55 billion “Decreto Rilancio” (relaunch decree) aid
package last Wednesday. According to the Art Newspaper,
the assistance includes €100 million set aside to support
state museums for losses in ticket sales, as well as a €210 million
emergency fund that covers bookshops, publishing companies, and
arts organizations to fill the gap for cancelled events and
exhibitions. Another €100 million goes to a “Culture Fund”
that is to provide cultural businesses with long-term loans for
investment in physical structures and cultural production for the
remainder of 2020 and 2021.

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Social-Distancing Necklaces and a New Chance to See Rome’s
Once-in-a-Lifetime Raphael Show appeared first on artnet
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