"What will be my first act as an Italian citizen? I'm going to get some nice coffee." This is what Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi, declared yesterday afternoon in Florence, at Palazzo Vecchio, after taking the oath on the Constitution and earning Italian citizenship. Schmidt says he is "proud to be a fellow citizen of great personalities, compared to whom I feel small: from Dante Alighieri to St. Francis and St. Thomas, but also more recently Benedetto Croce, or, in my field, museologist Lanzi or Antonio Paolucci, the recent director of the Vatican Museums. But Italy is also the legacy of ancient Rome, and I consider myself a descendant of Julius Caesar and Virgil." The director of the Uffizi does not hold back in his criticism of Florence mayor Dario Nardella, who "did not call to congratulate me" and "also stated that he does not speak to officials." And he does not remove his hesitation about running for mayor on the center-right ticket. "I'll think about it when my mandate as director of the Uffizi expires, over the Christmas period: then, around January, I'll decide whether to run or not".