Critics have likened it to a bus shelter, a sardine tin and a slatted bed frame, and some of its detractors have threatened to bomb it if it was ever constructed.

But after eight years of debate, the city of Florence has given the go-ahead to an enormous, modernist canopy to shade visitors at the Uffizi gallery. The planned seven-storey high structure, made from strips of polycarbonate and steel, has been loathed in most of Italy since its design was unveiled in 1998. However, despite opposition from Vittorio Sgarbi, a respected former culture minister, and Franco Zeffirelli, the filmmaker, the canopy will soon transform the façade of the Uffizi, which was built in the 16th century by Giorgio Vasari.