(By Michelle Ruelle).
The Colosseum is set to become
part of an archaeological park that will also include the Domus
Aurea, Palatine Hill and Forum sites, Culture Minister Dario
Franceschini announced on Tuesday.
The park will have a new director appointed via an
international selection process, as has already happened for 30
other top cultural sites that were made autonomous through a
reform, including Florence's Uffizi museum.
Franceschini said he is preparing to sign a ministerial
decree that reorganizes management of the Colosseum area to
complete a reform launched in 2014.
He said the country's transition to autonomously managed
museum complexes has "unquestionably" led to improvements,
including increased visitors and better services.
"It's a slow process, which will move forward in the country at
different speeds, but one that's bringing results," Franceschini
said.
With this new decree, the Special Superintendency will no
longer manage the Colosseum, Forum/Palatine and Domus Aurea
sites, but will instead take on responsibilities across the
entire Rome area that the Ordinary Superintendency, which will
be abolished, currently manages.
The Special Superintendency will remain autonomous in both
accounting and management, and will receive 30% of the revenue
from ticket sales to the new Colosseum archeological park -
about 11 million euros per year - for the maintenance of other
archaeological areas.
Those funds will be in addition to other state funding, which
Franceschini said over the past three years has been about 150
million euros annually.
Another 20% of ticket sale revenue from the new park will go
to the Culture Ministry's solidarity fund, which supports
Italian state museums.
Franceschini said the process of forming the new Colosseum
archaeological park would move forward rapidly, with the decree
signing to take place within 48 hours before heading to the
Audit Court and then publication in the country's official
gazette.
"Then the selection process will start for the director," he
said, adding that an interim director would manage current
personnel in the meantime.
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