The management of the Italian public cultural heritage: sale or enhancement?

In Italy, high costs for the management of the public cultural heritage and the need to cash in, to cope with the public financial deficit, have led governments to allow the sale of some of these goods. The sale of cultural buildings is allowed on condition that they are conserved and exploited, and that the buyer assigns to the building a new function compatible with its cultural value. Nevertheless, this process has not brought the expected benefits as a result. The new trend for the management of public cultural buildings consists in according to private managers a long-term licence to use the goods, putting them in charge of the maintenance and enhancement of the building, but keeping the property to the public. The present study aims to define a method to support the management choices, in order to control the preservation of values in the reuse of cultural buildings.