The National Institute of Statistics has published research on the progress and scenarios of the State Museums developed with Coronavirus.

In 2019, state structures were visited by almost 55 million people, with a collection of almost 243 million euros.

It is estimated that the health emergency and the related lockdown that closed museums throughout Italy caused, between March and May 2020, a lack of turnout of almost 19 million visitors and a failure to collect approximately 78 million euros.

In the same quarter of last year, the state museum structures had registered over 17 million visitors, generating gross revenues of 69 million euros.

Certainly alarming data, which further highlighted the need to digitize museums in the processes of fruition of collections, materials and catalogs, with a boost to online communication and the strengthening of websites.

According to the 2018 census, one in ten state-owned museums (11.5%) have a digital scientific catalog of their collections; of these, only 20.8% have digitized all the material and only 6.1% have made the online catalog accessible.

In support of the digitalization of the collections, Art Rights was born, software for the management and certification of art collections, which simplifies the valorisation and promotion activities, from cataloging to insurance, creating a real “digital passport of the work of art”.

On the online communication and information side of state museums, 43.7% have a dedicated website and 65.9% have an account on the most important social media, many born in the lockdown period in what has been defined by Andrea Concas, author of the book The Art after Coronavirus for Edizioni Piemme, as a real “digital gold rush”.

Now for the State Museums, as well as for the private ones, the funds approved on 13 May by the Council of Ministers are expected, in the context of the Decree Law Relaunch on the proposal of Minister Dario Franceschini.

The Relaunch Decree, in the Culture Package, includes an Emergency Fund for cultural businesses which amounts to 210 million euros in support of major events such as fairs, exhibitions and conferences canceled due to the COVID-19 emergency and for museums that are not part of of Mibact, while 100 million euros are allocated to the state ones.

A Culture Fund is also set up to promote investments in heritage, endowed with 100 million euros for 2020-2021 and open to the participation of private entities.

While 10 million euros are dedicated to the creation of a digital culture platform, what many have called the “Netflix of Culture”.

And you, are you ready to restart museums?