When Eike Schmidt gave Georgia Meloni a tour of Florence’s Uffizi gallery two years ago, they clearly made an impression on each other.
He was the first German director of the Italian museum and was busy boosting ticket sales through bold exhibitions. She was fighting a campaign in an election that would make her Italy’s first female prime minister and the head of the country’s most right-wing government in a generation.
“Meloni spent an entire afternoon at the Uffizi and we talked about art — she is very well read,” Schmidt, 55, recalled. “I saw she had a keen interest in the study of medieval theology, which I didn’t expect.”
Meloni evidently rated Schmidt too. Two years later her ruling coalition has recruited the art
