Italy has announced a plan to raise the price of museum tickets by €1 to generate funds to save cultural heritage damaged during floods in Emilia-Romagna. The proposal has drawn controversy from some cultural commentators, with some warnings it could drive Italians away from museums.
The measure was announced by the government of Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday as part of a €2 billion aid package, as emergency forces in Emilia-Romagna battled to rescue displaced people (including the total is estimated at over 36,000) as well as art, statues, historical books, historical buildings and archaeological sites from the floods. Proposed by Gennaro Sangiuliano, Minister of Culture, the increase in ticket prices will apply to public museums from June 15 to September 15. The government has not indicated how much the measure should generate.
Critics say the move will discourage more cash-strapped Italians from visiting museums. “I don’t think this policy is right, if only for a clear lack of social equality,” said Giuliano Volpe, professor of archeology at the University of Bari and former adviser to Dario Franceschini, the former Minister of Culture. The arts journal. “The country should help young people and the unemployed.”
According to the statistics agency ISTAT, only 21.8% of Italian men visited a museum in 2022, compared to 23.3% of women. To avoid further depressing visitor numbers, Volpe explained, the government would have to generate the funds through other channels, such as the lottery. “These price increases are part of a broader logic that is emerging within the ministry which promotes the increase in museum tickets,” he said.
Vittorio Sgarbi, undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, also criticized the decision. “Allow visitors the freedom [to visit museums] will be worth more than raising ticket prices,” he said on a Tagadà news program on Tuesday. Sgarbi has repeatedly called for admission to the museum to be made free in recent months, a move Sangiuliano said would be economically unsustainable.
Others, however, gave their support to the price hike. “This contribution from everyone could really solve a dramatic situation,” Giordano Bruno Guerri, president of the Fondazione Vittoriale (which manages the former house of poet Garbiele D’Annunzio), told the newspaper. Fatto Quotidiano. Speaking to the same publication, Caterina Bon Valsassina, former director of research and education at the Ministry of Culture, praised the government for the decisive introduction of the measure.
The extent of the damage to heritage in Emilia-Romagna has become clearer in recent days with Lucia Borgonzoni, undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, launching an investigation into sites in the region. The investigation has so far revealed damage to 75 historic buildings, 6 archaeological sites and 12 libraries and archives, Borgonzoni said in a statement Thursday. Damaged sites include the Museo delle Cappuccine in Bagnacavallo, where flooding of basement stores damaged six frescoes, and the Museo Guerrino Tramonti, in which stores containing 1,800 ceramic and canvas works were completely flooded.
On Thursday, the government sent packing materials to Emilia-Romagna and mobilized peacekeepers, the country’s main global heritage protection task force, in a bid to save endangered heritage. Culture Ministry Undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni said in a statement on Thursday that the Culture Ministry has made 2.5 million euros available to help protect cultural heritage, with 6 million euros more on the way.
