taste or even responsibility. But in a huge country with hundreds of thousands
of new fortunes arising, and tens of hundreds of private foundations coming
into
existence, it did assure the richness of calculated cultural anarchy.
(Kingman Brewster in Appignanesi 1984: 7)
It has been noted by an informed commentator that Italy has to address unique
cultural issues:
This first Italian particularity is that of having the largest ‘open-air’ heritage in
the Western world. Other countries, of course, have important museums,
famous collections, libraries and archives of great historical importance. No
other country, however, is forced to administer so important an archaeological
and architectural heritage that is unguarded and unguardable. Almost all our
cities have a historical centre with notable traces of Roman and pre-Roman
civilisation. Some have preserved, in whole or in part, a circumference of
medieval walls often, especially in Italy, embodying Etruscan and Roman
elements. All regions have archaeological sites of great historical interest.
In other countries the number of works of art preserved in churches repre-
sents a small percentage of what is kept in museums and private collections. In
Italy, thanks to the historical role of the Catholic Church, a conspicuous part
of the heritage has a double function: it is an object of aesthetic appreciation
by visitors and tourists and also an object of worship by millions of the
faithful; and as an object of worship it is in practice as far as administration
and
security are concerned, an ‘open-air’ object.
(Sergio Romano in Appignanesi 1984: 12)
If all of Italy is considered a cultural warehouse, the weight of history can become
unbearable. This helps to account why ‘privatization’ has raised its head. Most
recently, in October 2001, a one-sentence provision was tacked onto Italy’s 2002
Finance Bill that authorized the Ministry of Culture to ‘assign to private enterprise
the full management of services connected to the public enjoyment of cultural heri-
tage’. Directors of the most powerful art museums around the world wrote an open
letter to the Italian government expressing their alarm:
As directors of major international museums, we are concerned by the
proposal, contained in the current
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