Given the abundance of riches in the city, one could be forgiven for thinking that the last thing Florence needs is another museum. “Certainly it was in danger of becoming a kind of Renaissance Disneyland,” says James Bradburne, the British-Canadian director of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, the latest addition to Florence’s cultural scene. It is also one of its finest 15th-century palaces, for only the Medicis rivalled the Strozzis when it came to wealth and power. Bradburne says: “All you get in Florence is the cultural equivalent of bistecca fiorentina. You have this fabulous meal everywhere, and this fabulous art – at the Uffizi, the Accademia ... But if you want Chinese, or Thai, there’s not much around.”

Palazzo Strozzi was established to redress this and revitalise the city’s cultural life, not least in response to the perception that by focusing only on the Renaissance, Florence’s cultural scene was in danger of atrophying. In terms of the shows it puts on and the grandeur of its setting, it has something in common with London’s Royal Academy. But it has taken as its motto “non solo mostre” (not just exhibitions).