A demonstration against Italian museum mergers and privatization, and to demand more resources

Today the association Mi Riconosci? I am a Cultural Heritage Professional and the student organization Link Coordinamento Universitario take to the streets in Rome and other Italian cities (from north to south: Turin, Milan, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Perugia, Pescara, Pompei, Campobasso, Bari, Lecce) to demand the annulment of the decrees that introduced the Bonisoli reform: operations that, organizers claim, “have damaged the Italian museum system and opened the door to the privatization of the country’s most important state museums, and to call for resources for the entire cultural heritage in order to relaunch the country’s future.”

The reference is to the ministerial decree of August 14, sent to MiBAC employees, and by which several museums were merged into new institutions, the territorial directorates of museum networks, which according to the organizers of the protest sit-in are aimed at “favoring the concentration of tourist and economic flows in very few places, against the interest of Italian citizens. The Cenacolo Vinciano merged with the Pinacoteca di Brera, the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Florence merged with the Uffizi, the National Museums of Venice merged into a single institution, as well as all the National Museums of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Marche and Umbria: these mergers, which came without any confrontation with ministerial employees and the public, will create monstrous institutions incapable of functioning, canceling projects, throwing away years of effort and preventing the growth of State Museums, deprived of leadership and transformed into branches of larger institutions.”

The decree explains that the General Directorate of Museums is to “encourage the creation of new museum foundations,” and it is for this reason that, according to organizers, the way is being paved for the emergence of private foundations to manage our state museums.

“All this enormous reorganization, which is profoundly damaging for the future of Italy’s public cultural heritage,” denounces Benedetta Lisotti, a member of the Mi riconosci association, “was sanctioned by decree by a resigning government on the eve of Ferragosto: as covertly as possible. In Rome and Lazio, the reform leads to the merging of the Etruscan museums of Tuscany and Tuscia with the Etruscan museum of Valle Giulia by establishing the national Etruscan museums. The Appia Antica Park since August 22 no longer exists, putting the preservation of heritage at risk.”

For all these reasons the organizers launched the national mobilization, with the promise that other days of protest and proposal will be organized soon.

Pictured: an image from the sit-in in Pompeii.

A demonstration against Italian museum mergers and privatization, and to demand more resources

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