Risks and opportunities of Italian governance strategies for public heritage buildings

The recent Italian laws concerning historical and artistic assets allow the State to sell its cultural heritage buildings to private citizens or organizations, in order to improve the public budget. More and more frequent are cases of property granted to private use in return for payment or for free. This is fostering new trends of autonomous action of the citizens. Peoplecare for and use abandoned heritage assets, by implementing the principle of subsidiarity enshrined in the Italian Constitution. In this scenario, the rules which accompany the authorization for sale or for concession in use constitute an opportunity not only for the conservation of cultural assets, but also for the development of the territory. The new Italianmanagement model requires control methods and tools able to guarantee that the enhancement actions will produce a worthwhile pattern of good results while avoiding putting the conservation of cultural heritage into jeopardy.