Uffizi, clash between Montanari and Giuli around Cda appointments

The new governance phase of the Uffizi Galleries opens amid controversy. Just days before the formalization of the appointments of the new board of directors for the five-year period 2026-2031, Tomaso Montanari, rector of the University for Foreigners of Siena, announced his resignation from the Florentine museum’s scientific committee, denouncing what he calls a “political appropriation” of the institution and raising doubts about the composition of the new governing body. There was no lack of response from Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli.

Montanari’s decision came a few hours ago, and is a consequence of the decree signed on May 25 by the minister of culture, which appointed the new members of the board of directors of the Uffizi Galleries. A step that had been awaited for months, considering that the previous BoD had expired in December 2025 and that the renewal of the governance of Italy’s main museum center had been suspended for about six months. The new board of directors will be called upon to lead one of the world’s most important and visited cultural institutions in a particularly delicate phase, characterized by organizational transformations, redefinition of management strategies and development of the museum’s cultural and scientific policies.

Making up the new administrative body will be Alessandro Campi, Carlo Deodato, Stefano Mugnai and Carmen Bambach. They will be joined by the director of the Uffizi Galleries, Simone Verde, who is an ex officio member, as required by the statute. Among the appointments, the one that has received the most attention in international museum circles is undoubtedly that of Carmen Bambach. A world-renowned art historian, she is considered one of the foremost scholars of Leonardo da Vinci and heads the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her presence on the new board represents the profile most closely linked to the field of art historical research and international museum management. Also joining the new board are Alessandro Campi, an academic and professor of the History of Political Doctrines at the University of Perugia, who is also known for having been a longtime collaborator of Gianfranco Fini; Carlo Deodato, current Secretary General of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers; and Stefano Mugnai, a municipal employee in Florence and former Forza Italia deputy. Completing the composition of the Board, as mentioned, is Director Verde. The previous Board, which expired at the end of last year, consisted of Stefano Casciu, former regional director of the National Museums of Tuscany; Fulvio Cervini, full professor of Medieval Art History and director of the SAGAS Department at the University of Florence; Aurélie Filippetti, former French Minister of Culture; and Valdo Spini, former Minister of the Environment in the Ciampi and Amato I governments and former councilor for Culture at the City of Florence.

The announcement of the new appointments, however, provoked the immediate reaction of Tomaso Montanari, who chose to leave the Scientific Committee of the Uffizi Galleries through a letter addressed directly to Minister Giuli. In the text, Montanari states that he learned of the composition of the new council only through the press and communicates his “irrevocable resignation” with immediate effect. According to the art historian, the presence on the Board of Directors of the Secretary General of the Council Presidency would be a sign of excessive political interference in the management of the museum. In the letter, Montanari calls in fact “very serious” the minister’s decision to subject the institution to such close control by the Prime Minister’s Office. “In fact, I consider it very serious that you have considered subjecting the Museum to such close control by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, even appointing its Secretary General to the Board of Directors,” Montanari writes.

The art historian also criticizes two other of the appointments made by the minister, which he considers an expression of ideological logic rather than technical-scientific criteria. In his assessment, the three contested components would lack specific expertise in the governance of museum institutions. “The brazenly ideological nature of two other appointments, and the absence of any competence in the governance of museums of these three components, configure a political appropriation in itself that is serious and unacceptable, because it is incompatible with the belonging of the cultural heritage to the entire nation,” he argues in the letter. Montanari also expresses reservations about Carmen Bambach’s presence. While acknowledging her scientific authority, he believes that her role at the Metropolitan Museum may constitute a situation of potential conflict of interest. “Finally, the presence of Carmen Bambach, an authoritative art historian colleague but also conservator in a large foreign museum structurally interested in the loan of works from the Uffizi Galleries, integrates an obvious, as well as highly inappropriate, conflict of interest,” he writes. For these reasons, Montanari concludes, the conditions would no longer exist for her to continue serenely in her position on the Scientific Committee.

The response from the Ministry of Culture came a few hours later through an official note circulated by the press office of Minister Alessandro Giuli. The minister chose to respond in particularly polemical tones, opening his comment by quoting Palmiro Togliatti who ironically apostrophized Elio Vittorini’s departure from the PCI. “Montanari left, and alone he left us,” Giuli states in the note. The ministerial holder then rejects the accusations made by the art historian and defends the choices made in the composition of the new board of directors.

According to the minister, the criticism directed at the appointments would be groundless and would not find justification in the professional profiles identified. “The reasons given by the distinguished Prof. Montanari - that is, the appointment of impeccable technical figures in the board of directors, such as the Secretary General of the Presidency of the Council Carlo Deodato as well as, in the scientific committee, a very authoritative art scientist such as Carmen Bambach, among others curator at the Met in New York - appear at least below suspicion in their specious guise and decidedly disappointing considering his misunderstood intellectual caliber,” Giuli declares.

The Uffizi Galleries represent one of the most recognized symbols of the national cultural heritage, and any choice regarding their governance inevitably takes on significance beyond administrative boundaries. In the meantime, the new Board of Directors is preparing to fully assume its functions, with the task of accompanying the Uffizi Galleries over the next five years. A mandate that opens, however, under the sign of controversy and with a confrontation likely to continue in the coming months, involving the world of culture, politics and museum institutions.

Uffizi, clash between Montanari and Giuli around Cda appointments

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