Whiff of the Deli Comes to Uffizi

It started innocently enough with a few Michelangelo cherubs on bookmarks. Then came Picasso dove pendants and Mondrian mouse pads. Now art gallery merchandising is breaking into new - and debatable - territory.

The Uffizi in Florence, the holy of holies of Italian Renaissance art, is to sell wine. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar will also be offered to visitors as part of a joint initiative by Italy's arts and agriculture ministries under the slogan "Italian taste - when food is art". Quite soon it will be impossible to escape the whiff of the delicatessen in any of Florence's great art museums. The Uffizi's bookshop and gift stores will start displaying Tuscan produce from Thursday. After that the plan is to make sure visitors can stock up on chianti in the shadow of Michelangelo's David at the Accademia or after making the rounds of Palazzo Pitti.

Launching the project, Italy's agriculture minister, Gianni Alemanno, said: "People visiting our museums will now have the chance to get better acquainted with our products - masterpieces in themselves." The government's top cultural official in Florence, Antonio Paolucci, said: "In Italy, everything is art. The old centres of the towns as well as the paintings and sculptures; the lines of the cars, the way of life, the temperament of the men and the elegance of the women as much as the food and wine."

The Uffizi has a renowned collection of pictures by German, Dutch and Flemish masters, but there are, as yet, no plans to put beer on sale too.