Italian museums strive to turn cultural wealth into profit

By Isla Binnie CASERTA, Italy (Reuters) - Where the kings of Naples once parked their horse-drawn carriages, the guardians of a more enduring symbol of Italy - mozzarella cheese - are setting up their headquarters. Renting the Caserta palace coach house to a consortium that promotes the mozzarella brand is typical of the businesslike approach of Mauro Felicori, a new breed of museum director who is trying to get more value from Italy's rich culture. The 1,200-room Bourbon palace is among 20 sites that got new chiefs last year as part of a government drive to revitalise the country's artistic heritage after years of cuts. The sites were given unprecedented control over their budgets and a mandate to raise their own funds. They no longer have to send all their revenue back to Rome coffers. "We behave like small businessmen," said Felicori, who has extended opening hours and started selling evening tickets for one euro ($1.12). The coach house deal will bring more than 1.2 million euros ($1.34 million) over 12 years. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has hiked the culture ministry's budget by 27 percent to 2.1 billion euros and pledged to invest in sites including Caserta, whose roof partly collapsed in 2014. But attempts to innovate have been dogged by rigid labour rules and bureaucracy, underlining the challenges Renzi faces in streamlining the public sector and boosting a stagnant economy. A few months after Felicori took over, labour unions wrote to the culture minister to complain that he worked too late at night, "behaviour (which) puts the whole structure at risk". Renzi defended the director, saying "the fun's over" for the unions. It has not always felt like fun for the newcomers. In Florence, police fined Eike Schmidt, the new head of the Uffizi Gallery which houses Botticelli's Birth of Venus, for airing a recorded warning to visitors against ticket touts. "When the fine arrived I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," Schmidt, who is German, told Reuters. "Italy still has a lot of evolving to do." Tourism accounts for more than 10 percent of the country's economic output, but little has been done to develop the sector. As of last year only four of the 400 state museums had a restaurant, and 80 percent had no bookshop, meaning potentially easy sources of revenue are being missed. Schmidt has enlivened evenings at the Uffizi with live music and conducted a study on the science of queuing to try to manage the crowds. Further south, fellow German Gabriel Zuchtriegel has adapted the Paestum archaeological park for wheelchair users. Revenue from all state museums rose 16 percent in the first four months of 2016 to 41.6 million euros, an improvement but still tiny compared with the more-than 100 million euros Paris's Louvre museum makes each year from ticket sales, sponsors and promotions. UNCOMFORTABLE COMPARISONS Italy's bid to exploit its cultural wealth has proved a challenge partly because of years of under-investment. Despite boasting more UNESCO world heritage sites than any other country, spending on leisure and culture was far below the EU average in 2014, and the ministry's budget dropped 26 percent between 2000 and 2015, trade body Federculture says. Felicori said more needed to be done to allow museums to be run like businesses. Crucially, Rome still controls staffing and Felicori lamented the limited scope he has to move staff between sites or promote over-qualified attendants. "Our autonomy is very limited by all the rules that still prevail in the public administration," he said. Progress is being made. A sign to the Caserta site has finally been installed on a nearby main road and Felicori estimates that visitors to the monumental palace will grow by 30 percent this year to reach 650,000. Caserta is sometimes dubbed "Italy's Versailles", but beyond their shared scale, limpid ponds and formal gardens, the comparison becomes uncomfortable, with some seven million tourists visiting the French royal palace each year. Part of the problem is access, said Felicori, who complains that it takes 45 minutes to reach the site by public transport from the nearest big city, Naples, which is just 25-km away. Facing a similar headache, the director of Naples' Capodimonte Museum, which showcases works by artists of the calibre of Botticelli, Mantegna and Raphael, persuaded the authorities to start a shuttle bus service from the city centre to the art house, which is slightly off the beaten track. "It is the beginning of an evolution," said Caserta's Felicori. "We have a mission to complete. It's one thing to get on a moving train, and it's another to get on one that is semi-paralysed like it was here." ($1 = 0.8927 euros) (Editing by Crispian Balmer and Ralph Boulton)