Museums: Franceschini, "stable" free first Sunday returns

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 29 - Since their experimental introduction in 2014, the free Sundays at the museum "have given excellent results". This was confirmed in Question Time by the Minister of Culture Franceschini who announces that he has "sent the new draft decree to the Council of State" to extend the initiative to all the first Sundays of the month and make it stable.
The experience of these years, explains the minister in response to the question presented by the deputies of the Democratic Party Flavia PiccoliNardelli and Rosa Maria Di Giorgi, "has brought over 17 million visitors to Italian state museums", indeed, he adds, "in some cases it was a popular celebration , more people entered museums than on a Sunday at the stadium. " Tourists, of course, "but also citizens and families. The initiative worked also because it brought people to the museum who, although living nearby, never entered". Pedagogical value therefore, underlines the minister, but also financial: "because the free Sundays were the driving force for the following days, they brought new paying visitors to museums".
In the past legislature, the 5-star minister Alberto Bonisolia had reduced the initiative to six months a year by giving the muses the opportunity to choose when to apply the gratuity: an experiment that according to Franceschini did not work, also leading to a reduction in the overall number of visitors to the museums that in 2019, for the first time in years, has not increased, rather it has decreased, albeit slightly. "Both the numbers and the need for stabilization, which is important in Italy, convinced me - concludes the minister - to confirm that the first Sunday of the month is free for the whole year". (HANDLE).