Italian Museums Fill Websites with Primrose Images for Vaccine Day

Italy's Vaccine Day on December 27, 2020, adopted the fuchsia primrose as its symbol, originally designed by Stefano Boeri for temporary vaccination pavilions. The Ministry of Cultural Heritage (MIBACT), led by Dario Franceschini, launched a digital campaign encouraging state museums, libraries, and archives to share primrose imagery from their collections on websites and social media. The campaign aims to support the national vaccination effort against COVID-19. Examples include primroses from Andrea del Verrocchio's 'Dama col mazzolino' at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, intarsia work by Francesco di Giorgio Martini at Palazzo Ducale di Gubbio, embroidery on a Calabrian costume at the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome, porcelain from Manifattura Discry at Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola in Genoa, a 1919 postcard from the Cesare Poma Archive in Biella, 16th-century books at the Biblioteca Universitaria di Cagliari, volumes by Gaetano Savi at the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, and Gennaro De Crescenzo's 'Ninfa alata' at Palazzo Reale in Naples. The article also criticizes the government's propaganda approach, noting that Germany began vaccinations with 150,000 doses while Italy had fewer than 10,000, and questions the lack of a real organizational strategy.