THE IMPLICATION OF the title of this Editorial might seem alarmist but the question is a pertinent one, given the ideological crisis that has plagued Italian museums and galleries for almost twenty years and which threatens the very foundations of such institutions, great and small, throughout the country.
Italian museums increasingly suffer from the effects of the political crisis that has confounded – and still confounds – Italy, demonstrating that they are too heavily dependent on government, whether national, regional or municipal.  Compounding the problem is the question of the role of the museum director, one that in some cases no longer exists in the understood sense of the term. Important decisions can be taken by a minister barely competent in museum affairs, someone who may hold office for only a few months, or by local councillors (assessori) who, though they may boast of their cultural credentials, invariably have no idea of the functions and essential prerogatives of a museum; more likely than not they assume that they have fulfilled their duty by organising an exhibition on Impressionism or one that includes the ubiquitous name of Caravaggio in its title, but do not question that, in so doing, they have not guaranteed the essential conditions that allow a museum to function.
That this is a real crisis is evident from a simple comparison: over the past twenty years the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and the Museo del Prado in Madrid – to cite only the best-known examples in Europe – have faced up to the necessity of rethinking their displays and adding to their buildings to enable them to serve their function more fully. It cannot be said that all the results are equally successful, but once the need to act was accepted, decisions were made and the work was carried through. For almost half a century there has been talk of the necessity of enlarging the Galleria degli Uffizi1 and the Pinacoteca di Brera – historically and in terms of importance perhaps the foremost museums in Italy – but between the endless discussions and futile or disastrous expenditure (the ‘restorations’ made to the Palazzo Citterio in Milan, intended for temporary exhibitions for the nearby Brera, are proof of what it is possible to spend only to damage the building without solving the Brera’s problems) any solution still seems far away.
In this depressing climate there are exceptions: the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples has been completely rethought and reorganised in the space of a few years, making the most of what is already there, creating new spaces, presenting the collections according to a scheme that takes into account the institution’s history and its links with the city, and organising exemplary exhibitions. In sharp contrast, the Galleria Borghese in Rome has been subjected to ‘modernisation’ but with lamentable results: the gallery has been transformed into a kind of supermarket with announcements made by loudspeaker as to the amount of time permitted for a visit (a maximum of two hours from the time of entry) and announcing a series of ‘special offers’ for visitors to the perennial cycle of exhibitions which, notwithstanding the often eminent scholars involved, hardly seem necessary in a gallery that is chiefly visited for the sake of its outstanding permanent collection.
It could be thought that the merits and defects of cases such as these are directly attributable to those in charge of the respective museums. But this is not always the case. A good number of the poorer decisions made in Italian museums derive from the imperative of financial exploitation, the idée fixe of politicians when dealing with the country’s artistic patrimony. Need more be said when it is known that one particular Soprintendente had the gall to ask the director of a State museum if it would be possible to hold wedding receptions in its venerable rooms.
The notorious ‘cultural deposits’ (giacimenti culturali) – a term symptomatic of a conception of artistic patrimony as a financially exploitable resource – was set up about twenty years ago by the government of the day and has had minimal positive results. Such exploitation and a lack of investment in the museums themselves has become almost the norm in Italian cultural politics. A direct result of this policy has been the decision to farm out ticket sales and the museums’ so-called additional services to private companies, with the consequence that educational programmes, even those for schools, are obtainable only by payment, with the risk that such visitors end up paying more to the ticket agency than to the museum itself. The idea that a museum is by its very nature a centre of cultural excellence, not a cash-cow, has been lost – and lost to the governments of whatever political colour who often haphazardly suggest other European and American institutions as exemplary models, with no understanding of their very different history, structure or purpose.
In a country that is rapidly losing its cultural identity, the dense network of museums spread across Italy – the very emblems of the nation itself – is now in a perilous position. The State threatens to concern itself from now on only with those institutions – a dozen at the most – whose ‘footfall’ guarantees a secure income, with the consequent danger that national galleries in cities such as Bologna, Genoa, Modena and Perugia would be virtually abandoned to their fate. On the other hand, some municipalities that boast a number of incomparable museums, in some cases of equal importance to State museums, as in, for example, Milan, Bergamo, Verona or Genoa, through mindless political decisions and lack of funds, choose to invest more in commercially driven, ephemeral exhibitions than in what history and generous patrons have entrusted to them. In the end, it is the cultural patrimony that pays the price.

In a country that is rapidly losing its cultural identity, the dense network of museums spread across Italy – the very emblems of the nation itself – is now in a perilous position. The State threatens to concern itself from now on only with those institutions – a dozen at the most – whose ‘footfall’ guarantees a secure income, with the consequent danger that national galleries in cities such as Bologna, Genoa, Modena and Perugia would be virtually abandoned to their fate. On the other hand, some municipalities that boast a number of incomparable museums, in some cases of equal importance to State museums, as in, for example, Milan, Bergamo, Verona or Genoa, through mindless political decisions and lack of funds, choose to invest more in commercially driven, ephemeral exhibitions than in what history and generous patrons have entrusted to them. In the end, it is the cultural patrimony that pays the price.