Ginori Museum, more clash. President: 'assignment is a rip-off'. Montanari: "barbarians."

It is again a clash around the Ginori Museum in Sesto Fiorentino. The mayor of Rio nell’Elba, Marco Corsini, who was recently appointed by Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli as the new president of the Ginori Museum Foundation in Sesto Fiorentino, has publicly described the appointment as a “rip-off.” His words, spoken rather directly and ironically during a city council meeting, raised a storm.

In the course of his speech, Corsini, in order to defend himself against accusations of a lack of presence in his municipality, recounted that he had accepted the assignment almost casually, during a meeting in Rome with the minister, to whom he had gone to obtain funding for his municipality, specifically for the restoration of the Governor’s Palace in Rio. Instead, he would then be approached by Giuli with an offer to assume the presidency of the Ginori museum. “The position is anything but magnificent,” Corsini said during the town hall meeting. “The museum has been closed for years, subject to a restoration contract that won’t start, and maybe that’s why I was called in. But when it opens if it has 700-800 visitors a year, it will be a success. What’s more, not even in Florence, in Sesto Fiorentino. But you can see that the minister could use a resume like mine, so he begged me with the phrase ’the homeland calls’.” Corsini then also touched on the issue of competencies, recalling that the Ginori Foundation’s bylaws stipulate that the president has duties of “representation and institutional relations.”

He also aimed a jibe at the museum’s former president, Tomaso Montanari, saying that Corsini could also refuse the post, but certainly his place would not be taken by Montanari “because the president of a public body who expresses himself in those ways with the government, in such a hysterical, rude, anti-institutional way, is certainly not worthy to hold that office. Office moreover to which I did not replace him, because the president’s term had expired in October 2024. For those who know the things of public administration, if you run away, ask to be renewed, have the mayor ask, have the president ask and you will not be renewed, it is certain that you will not be renewed, so Montanari had ended his experience.” In conclusion, Corsini said, “I did not know the minister, he honored me with his esteem and chose me by resume. I don’t think the assignment is so absorbing that it prevents me from fulfilling my duties.”

The statements outraged many, particularly in Sesto Fiorentino, a city historically linked to Manifattura Ginori and actively involved in the project to relaunch the museum, which has been closed for years. The mayor of Sesto, Lorenzo Falchi, reacted firmly, calling Corsini’s words serious not only toward the city, but also toward the cultural and museum reconstruction work under way. He stressed that the Ginori’s is not a minor reality, but a cultural and identity symbol for the community. “If for Corsini, as he even admits without mincing words, the Ginori museum is a ’rip-off,’ he can immediately remit the mandate to Minister Giuli,” Falchi said, stating in a note that “we are outraged by the account he has given about the manner in which he was given the position, which shows improvisation and inadequacy on the part of the Ministry.”

Tomaso Montanari, former president of the Foundation, who was not renewed despite the support of the Tuscany Region and the City of Sesto Fiorentino, also harshly criticized Corsini’s exit. “Minister Giuli chose him to chair the Ginori Museum Foundation: listen to how he tells the story, and note the contempt he flaunts for what he should be called upon to bring to life. Among the various falsehoods he says, and net of the insults he reserves for me, he should know that I asked nothing of anyone: it was Giuli who first said to me, then in public and then by a formal act addressed to the Region and the Municipality (an act made public by me and which the lawyer Corsini pretends not to know), that he had decided to reappoint me. Before his party called him back to believe, obey, fight. We are in the hands of barbarians, who hide neither their political use of cultural heritage nor their profound ignorance on the subject. Between minister and (perhaps) president, I don’t know who is more embarrassing ... ”.

The climate around the Ginori Museum, already marked by years of waiting for renovations and the slow restart of the museum project, has thus become even more overheated. The affair is increasingly taking on the contours of a national political case, with the real risk that the controversy could further slow the path toward the reopening of the cultural institution.

In the photo: Tomaso Montanari

Ginori Museum, more clash. President: 'assignment is a rip-off'. Montanari: "barbarians."

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