A former Uffizi director’s bid to become mayor of Florence has taken a controversial turn following accusations he has mocked southern Italians with a xenophobic slur printed on election pamphlets.
Eike Schmidt, who led the grand Florence museum for seven years and stepped down in December, is prime minister’s Giorgia Meloni’s favoured candidate in local elections in the Tuscan capital slated for this weekend. He and the right-wing coalition that backs him are determined to win power in the city that has been ruled by the left for the past four decades—a result that would amount to a political earthquake.
However, Schmidt unleashed a wave of criticism after including the phrase “Florence is not Torre del Greco” on a pamphlet outlining plans to make the city greener. Critics claimed the director had ridiculed inhabitants of the town near Naples that is frequently portrayed as a crime-ridden bastion of the Camorra mafia.
Luigi Mennella, Torre del Greco’s left-wing mayor, responded furiously, claiming in a statement that the phrase amounted to “sleazy propaganda” that gave the town “a negative and, above all, blatantly anti-southern slant”. Dario Nardella, Florence’s outgoing mayor, said in a video posted on social media that Schmidt had offended “the history and essence of Florence: that of an open city that has always welcomed everyone”.
Southern Italians have endured centuries of derision from their wealthier northern and central neighbours, with Matteo Salvini, the hard-right leader from Milan, filmed in 2009 chanting “smell that stench, here come the Neapolitans” with a chorus of supporters.
However, Schmidt, who has directed Naples’s Capodimonte Museum since January, vehemently denied accusations of xenophobia, claiming he was underlining that orange trees recently planted in Florence’s city centre were better suited to the warmer climes of Torre del Greco. “It is a climate issue,” he said, adding: “I would never dream of promoting the Florentine steak in Naples, just as [the] pizza festival in Piazzale Michelangelo [is] to the detriment of restaurateurs, including excellent Neapolitan pizza makers".
Schmidt, who is campaigning with the slogan “Magnificent Florence”, has promised to bring “security and decorum” to the city’s streets. Three polls published in the penultimate week of May suggested he was trailing Sara Funaro, his left-wing rival, by between 11 and 3 percentage points. Schmidt is likely to face Funaro in a run-off if no candidate reaches the 50% mark, and has indicated that he will return to Capodimonte if he fails to pull off his Florence comeback.