How Italy's autonomous museums fared in 2023


An analysis of the numbers of autonomous museums in 2023: who goes up, who goes down, who remains stable. And what the numbers might tell us.

Comprehensive statistical data on state museum institutions in the year 2023 were released in November. Beyond the generic releases issued already months ago (visitors are growing, by a little, and receipts are growing by a lot, thanks in part toincreased ticket prices), little was analyzed regarding the numbers of individual institutes. Particularly those that are not performing as well as they should.

In this analysis, which cannot be exhaustive, but will attempt to be as broad as possible, the figures for institutes with special autonomy in 2023 were analyzed. That is, of museums that, under the 2016 Franceschini reform, have administrative autonomy and a director paid to perform only that role, comparing them with the previous record year for Italian museums, 2019.



Background: the numbers of Italian museums have long been linked to international tourism trends, so it is no surprise to find, year to year, among the most visited museums in Italy, largely the same institutions. Many are autonomous museums, but even this is not a surprise having been chosen (at least originally) for visitor volume as well, so that they could have partial financial autonomy. Less obvious is to note that some autonomous museums have seen very significant growth, others even net declines in receipts and visitors. Not involved in this analysis, of course, are the 16 institutes that became autonomous in 2024 under the latest ministerial reform (the total number went from 46 to 60).

Assuming, therefore, that in the ranking of the most visited museums between 2023 and 2019, many names and numbers are similar (Pompeii, Uffizi, Borghese Gallery, Castel Sant’Angelo, etc.), let us dwell on the new, or the less obvious aspects. Without intending these to be a judgment of merit: the writer does not think that the number of visitors can, in itself, be an indicator of whether a museum is functioning or not. But it is a number to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

Uffizi
Uffizi
Borghese Gallery. Photo: Alessandro Pasquali / Danae Project
Borghese Gallery. Photo: Alessandro Pasquali / Danae Project

Who’s rising

Among the autonomous museums, some are growing, numbers-wise, faster than others. In proportion to their starting numbers: Pompeii has long since reached 4 million annual visitors, the Colosseum 7.5 million, so growing, for such giants, is not only not easy, but perhaps not even helpful to the quality of visitation. A few examples. Palazzo Venezia in Rome, with autonomy, has changed level: it has 391,000 paying visitors in 2023, it was 53,000 in 2019. However, it is not possible to know how many non-paying visitors there are: the provided, huge number (almost 4 million) is not considered reliable by the Ministry offices themselves.

The Accademia Gallery in Florence has now steadily reached 2 million annual visitors and, joining with the Bargello, is preparing to become a maxi-institute with almost 3 million annual tickets. The Reggia di Caserta continues to grow, reaching 931,000 visitors: it was 734,000 in 2019, 683,000 in 2016.

Many other “smaller” and lesser-known autonomous institutes are growing, such as the Royal Museums of Turin, which arrived at 626,000 visitors (they were less than 500,000 in 2019), the Royal Palace of Naples, from 272,000 to 434,000, or the National Gallery of Umbria , which went from 94,000 to 164,000 visitors, just to name a few cases of significant increases compared to pre-pandemic.

Florence Academy Gallery. Photo: Guido Cozzi
Florence Academy Gallery. Photo: Guido Cozzi
Colosseum
Colosseum

Those who stagnate

Then there are institutes that have been stuck on similar, if not the same, numbers for years as they were before they became autonomous. The National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria travels between 210 thousand and 240 thousand visitors a year. Taranto’s National Archaeological Museum stops around 75 thousand (it was 82 thousand in 2016). Museums with incredible collections, and the most important in their respective regions that, years later, one wonders if they can function independently from the regional museum fabric.

The National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia is stuck at 80,000 visitors, it was 83,000 in 2019 (but 70,000 in 2016), a sign that something has jammed for a museum that is located in Rome, and that also has iconic pieces in its collections. A separate discussion should be made for the National Roman Museum, which counters 4 venues, two of which are literally in front of Termini station, which are magnificent, so much so that there are sponsors like Bulgari or Sky ready to rent them out for private events, but it fails to grow: in 2023 it stopped at 318 thousand total visitors, compared to 339 thousand in 2016 and 331 thousand in 2019. Minister Alexander Giuli in this case did not renew the appointment of director Stéphane Verger. The museum relies on 75 million euros in Pnrr funds, and is renovating the Crypta Balbi building.

National Archaeological Museum of Taranto
National Archaeological Museum of Taranto
National Roman Museum, Palazzo Massimo
National Roman Museum, Palazzo Massimo

Those who go down

Then there are some cases where significant decreases have been marked, more or less surprising. The National Archaeological Museum in Naples, after years of growth in popularity and tickets taken out (there were 452,000 in 2016) has seen a sharp stop: last year there were 553,000 visitors, compared to 670,000 in 2019. This is probably also why the cost of the ticket, which had reached a record price of 22 euros, has dropped to 20. Still an almost double price compared to a few years ago, and higher than that of other national museums.

Also in Naples, the Capodimonte Museum dropped to 174,000 visitors, down from 252,000 in 2019. In this case, the fact that many of the collection’s key works were on loan to the Louvre for a questionable exhibition may easily have led many to pass up the visit.

Also falling are the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, from 265,000 visitors in 2019 to 182,000 in 2023 (less than in 2016), and the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, from 305,000 in 2019 to 265,000 in 2023. In the latter case, however, it should be noted that in 2022 there had been many more visitors, 365 thousand. The Venetian Gallery is seeing flows dependent on contemporary art exhibitions organized on the occasion of the Art Biennale, with visitor numbers that have long been undersized compared to other major city museums (the Doge’s Palace has 2 million visitors a year), whose competition it evidently suffers.

A very special case, then, is that of the Museum of Civilizations in Rome (Eur), created in 2016 by bringing together the Museum of the Early Middle Ages, the Museum of Oriental Art, the Pigorini Museum (prehistory and Paleolithic) and the Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions, four very rich and diverse collections. The new institute, also affected by the sudden death of director Filippo Maria Gambari in November 2020, has not yet found a way to make itself known: visitors in 2023 were 39 thousand, few in absolute terms and particularly for Rome. They were 52,000 in 2019, 78,000 in 2017. The Fp Cgil of Rome and Lazio is so alarmed by the steady decline that it has sent a note in which it judges the work of director Andrea Viliani as “disappointing” considering “the huge flow of direct investments to the museum, which amount to between 8 and 10 million euros in a scant three years,” funds used, however for the purchase of contemporary art works (Viliani is a contemporaryist) that according to the union “have transformed the Museum of Civilizations into a contemporary art museum, despite its original vocation as an archaeological, scientific and ethnographic museum.” Giuli in any case renewed Viliani’s appointment, thus judging him to be a capable director.

National Archaeological Museum of Naples
National Archaeological Museum of Naples
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice. Photo: Matteo De Fina
Galleries of the Accademia in Venice. Photo: Matteo De Fina

A few questions, and some numbers that don’t add up

Are autonomous museums, then, working? To answer this question, one would need to know what they are for. If they serve to attract more visitors and have financial autonomy, only a few are succeeding. But it is now hard to believe that this is the case: there are autonomous museums that in 2023 saw ticket revenues of 120,000, 80,000, even 55,000 euros a year. Not because of the inability of those who run them, but because they have historically had few visitors, or because of situations of territorial location (think L’Aquila, Sibari, Matera) independent of the Ministry of Culture. If these institutes can barely cover the director’s salary alone from outside income, how will they be able to give themselves a design independent of ministerial funds and wishes? The risk, as happened with the last Sangiuliano reform, is that some autonomous museums will be gradually amalgamated with others in order to give them a minimum of sustainability, a situation that will nevertheless lead to the gradual overcoming of the autonomy envisioned in 2016 by Dario Franceschini.

Finally, there are some numbers that ... are not there. In the total of 57 million visitors in 2023, up from 2019 (it was 54 million), there are the more than 3.4 million who entered Palazzo Venezia for free, the more than 1 million who entered the Miramare Castle park in Trieste for free. Numbers considered not credible by the Ministry, which does not count them either in the “ranking” of the most visited museums at the end of the year or in those of individual free Sundays. There are the 5 million visitors to the Roman Forum and Palatine (which were not there in 2019, since there is no way to count them), but almost all of them enter with the cumulative ticket to the Flavian Amphitheater: that is why visitors to the “Archaeological Park of the Colosseum” have gone from 7.6 to 12.3 million hit, although admissions to the Amphitheater that gives it its name are stable. In short, there is no certainty that real visitors (not those counted by computer systems) were really more than 2019. And this is a problem for those who have to tell the data, and for those who have to analyze it. It should also be a problem for ministerial communication, which instead has been talking too easily about continuous “records” for some time now.


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