(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP
ROME: Italy's culture minister promisedon Thursday to fight a court ruling that removed the directorsof five museums credited with helping boost revenues after yearsof poor management.
Dario Franceschini said he was astonished by the court'sdecision to uphold complaints from unsuccessful applicants forsome of the 20 directorships that, with great fanfare, wereopened for the first time to foreign candidates in 2015.
The ruling affects the heads of the Ducal Palace Museum ofMantua and the Estense Gallery in Modena in northern Italy, andthe archaeological museums of Naples, Taranto and ReggioCalabria in the south.
'I take note, with great pain, of what this means bothpractically and for the image of Italy abroad,' Franceschinitold reporters in Rome, saying he would appoint temporarydirectors and appeal against the ruling.
The new directors were part of a plan to dust off the statemuseum system, a sprawling network of 400 sites of which until2015 only four had a restaurant and 80 percent had no bookshop.
The administrative court for the Lazio region, whichsurrounds Rome, ruled that the evaluation process was confusedand opaque, and questioned the hiring of foreigners to some ofthe posts.
The ministry says its reform efforts are paying off, withmuseum ticket revenue rising 12 percent last year to 172 millioneuros ($193 million). Earnings remain low compared to othercountries, however - Paris's Louvre alone rakes in 100 millioneuros a year.
The court rejected a call for the removal of the Germandirectors of the Uffizi Gallery and Accademia in Florence -which together house some of the Renaissance's greatestmasterpieces - and of Paestum archaeological site near Naples.
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