Everyone (but really everyone) against Bonisoli reform and museum mergers

No one really likes the museum mergers introduced by the Bonisoli reform: against the measures wanted by Cultural Heritage Minister Alberto Bonisoli, a rain of cross-party and bipartisan criticism has been unleashed in recent days, from the north to the south of the peninsula, with few exceptions. Below is a series of comments.

Tomaso Montanari, art historian, president of the Technical and Scientific Committee for Fine Arts of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage: “the imminent end of the Conte 1 government (whatever takes its place) has impressed a convulsive acceleration on the reorganization of Mibac undertaken by Minister Alberto Bonisoli. And, unfortunately, the effects of the haste can be seen. First of all, in the method: the Cultural Heritage is a technical ministry, at the top of which longtime bureaucrats with no specialization risk doing damage simply because they do not know what they are getting their hands on. And this latest August decree was done so, Renzi-style: the unions were only informed, while the ministry’s highest advisory body, the Superior Council of Cultural Heritage, not even that. Instead, the voice of those who know things would have helped to avoid making serious mistakes. The most disconcerting one concerns one of the most important monumental complexes in the world, the Appian Way, which loses its autonomy to be put up for bids by Invitalia as a kind of amusement park of antiquity: a real disaster.” On the creation of the National Museums of the Etruscans: a “demented choice both for the very many Etruscan things that remain outside (think of Vetulonia or Montefortino; or the many sites in Emilia...), and for the slabbing that it will bring in territories that have slices of heritage that are living parts of local systems taken away. Whether one wanted it or not, in fact, this is another hard blow dealt to the Superintendencies, so vituperated by Renzi and Franceschini and now also hit by the former government of (non)change” (Il Fatto Quotidiano, Aug. 18, 2019).

Peter Assmann, director of the Doge’s Palace in Mantua: “foreigners are no longer desired to lead state museums. Hollberg was also told in an official letter that her employment contract ends on August 22. There is a desire to get rid of us. I live a centralization of politics as we have known in dictatorially and autocratically governed states. The government in Rome wants to hold everything in its hands, with this reform we go backwards completely making local leeway null and void. The Accademia will be incorporated into the Uffizi, which historically makes no sense. The post will not be reoccupied” (Corriere Fiorentino, Aug. 17, 2019, translation of an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel).

Valentina Di Stefano, CISL representative on the Superior Council of Cultural Heritage: “Bonisoli’s August decrees are worse than we could have expected. [...] The minister has hit some regions with the axe, reducing the presence of the Ministry to the bare minimum. Reducing the executive offices in the territories means reducing the Ministry’s ability to act and spend in a region, generating not only serious consequences on the effectiveness of the action of heritage protection and enhancement, but also in economic terms.” On the fact that Marche will lose its regional secretariat: “it is inconceivable that a region that is recovering after the tragedy of the earthquake should be weakened. Marche, in fact, will lose the headquarters of the Secretariat, the office that has done extraordinary work in recent years, coordinating all the contracts, construction sites and activities related to the earthquake. And the same goes for Molise, which will have only one MiBAC manager, an abandonment by the Ministry of a territory with an extraordinary cultural and landscape heritage” (press release of August 20, 2019).

Vittorio Emiliani, president of the Committee for Beauty: “But where has the Ministry of Cultural Heritage of Spadolini, of Biasini, of Ronchey gone? Today assets of an absolute rarity - such as the Appia Antica and Villa Giulia dedicated to the Etruscans - are treated like a batch of artichokes, and their regents liquidated, one after the other’other, as pawns to be moved here and there, or to be ousted, as happens to the newly appointed director of the Appia Antica Park, Simone Quilici, chosen just two months and now, without formality of any kind, erased from that most precious site. With some excuse? But for goodness sake. Back comes the usual regent, an art historian, who let Palazzo Nordini, a gem, sell off without hesitation (but is there a written reason? Do we want to read it). [...] Former minister Franceschini thoroughly unhinged the system and tore apart the Archaeological Superintendence of Rome. Now Bonisoli undoes, re-centers, bungles. It is August, there is a government crisis, but Rome cannot remain silent in the face of this prevalence of ’mediocre as long as faithful’” (Repubblica, Aug. 13, 2019).

Dario Nardella, mayor of Florence (PD), on the amalgamation of the Accademia Gallery with the Uffizi: “The amalgamation is an inexplicable operation born at the last moment. It is part of a ’reform’ that I hope will be reviewed as soon as possible. A first-rate national museum has been downgraded, the Accademia, which is not the Uffizi’s spare wheel, is demeaning for Florence and Italian heritage” (Firenze Today, Aug. 14, 2019).

Raffaello De Ruggieri, mayor of Matera (center-right independent), from his open letter to Minister Bonisoli: “With bitterness I have registered the cancellation of the Polo Museale Lucano, based in Matera, due to the establishment of the Appulo Lucana Territorial Directorate of Museum Networks. This choice cannot go unnoticed, nor can it be part of a functional automatism of MiBAC. There is in fact a serious historical inconsistency since a Region and a city today European Capital of Culture are deprived of a cultural garrison. Such a choice mortifies the international dimension achieved today by Matera and culminated in the four exhibitions: Renaissance seen from the South, Ars Excavandi, The Poetics of Prime Numbers and Blid sensorium - the paradox of the antopocene. It is useful to remember, moreover, that such territorial aggregation ignored Dinu Adamesteanu’s great and long commitment to building the Lucanian archaeological system. The great archaeologist wanted and was able to express the specificity of a model that, starting also from the School of Specialization in Archaeological Heritage based in Matera, expressed scientific professionals such as: Felice Gino Lo Porto, Elena Lattanzi, Angelo Bottini, Massimo Osanna, Giuliana Tocco and Antonio De Siena. This Lucanian model has found its fulfillment in the construction of the Sistema Lucano consisting of the National Archaeological Museums of Matera, Metaponto, Heraclea, Grumento, Venosa, Muro Lucano, Melfi and Potenza, which for distinction and quality find no parallel in Apulia, a region moreover already gratified by the special autonomy of the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto. This systemic specificity is overwhelmed by the new ministerial organization, losing its territorial distinction and scientific specificity. For these reasons, as a representative of a city where the Decentralized Headquarters of the School of Higher Education of the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione e il Restauro (Higher Institute for Conservation and Restoration) is located, I express my dissent for a choice that, by cancelling the Lucanian Museum Pole, did not take into account the roles and models expressed by the Lucanian territory. If for reasons of functional and managerial economy this measure cannot be removed, let Matera be the seat of that New Territorial Directorate, precisely for the reasons stated above.”

Stefano Bruno Galli, Regional Councillor for Autonomy and Culture of the Lombardy Region (Northern League): “senseless decisions, because the only road to be pursued is the regionalization of policies for the enhancement of cultural heritage, abolishing the superintendencies, cataphalts that date back to the 1930s.” On the amalgamation of the Cenacolo Vinciano to the Pinacoteca di Brera: “this is a political façade initiative, because in this way it aims to exceed one million visitors, which is the number that a Pinacoteca of Brera’s level should do on its own. Different would have been to create a pole managed by a Foundation of which the Region and the Municipality would be part, in addition to the ministry” (Il Giornale, August 18, 2019).

Orietta Vanin, senator and member of the Culture Commission in the Senate (5 Star Movement): “we had asked for the establishment of the Superintendence of the Sea of which we have heard nothing more, on Monday we will be in Rome and we will hear what the communications are on the matter [...]. I don’t go into the merits of the reform, but the amalgamation of Lombardy and Veneto will be difficult to implement. A territory so large and so different in history and heritage will be complex to govern. Moreover, it will lack that attention to the local that is necessary for cultural heritage” (Corriere del Veneto, August 17, 2019).

Margherita Corrado, senator (5 Star Movement): “The brief exposition of the project, on March 19, was not followed by any moment of sharing with the technical commission installed by the minister, nor any screening of drafts. Moreover, no account was taken of the concerns expressed by those present at the meeting, including the substantive one vis-à-vis the prospective ’dictatorship’ of the already very powerful Secretary General [...]. It is incomprehensible how a further centralization of powers in the hands of the executive who in MiBAC already had more of a political rather than technical profile than the others (and the last frontier fell precisely with the appointment of the current one, a P.A. but alien to the cultural heritage sector), can meet the needs of the dicastery that the yellow-green government has entrusted to Bonisoli, nor how said choice is reconciled with the Pentastate cultural policy” (press release of August 9, 2019).

On the subject, also read the editorial by Federico Giannini, editor-in-chief of Finestre Sull’Arte, by clicking here.

Pictured: the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia. Ph. Credit Emanuele Santoro

Everyone (but really everyone) against Bonisoli reform and museum mergers

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