Italy’s Culture Falling to Ruins Amid Austerity Cuts

[Montag]

Italy’s Culture Falling to Ruins Amid Austerity Cuts
by Barbie Latza Nadeau

September 19, 2012
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...-cuts.html

excerpt:

Chunks of marble are falling off the ancient Colosseum. Bits of the famed Trevi Fountain have disintegrated. Many of Italy’s most important historic monuments are crumbling. With no money in the public budget, will enough private donors step up to save the nation’s cultural heritage?

Italy’s economy may be on the verge of collapse, but that’s not all that’s falling apart in the country. For the last several months, chunks of marble have been plummeting from the Colosseum, ancient walls have been reduced to rubble and even bits of the baroque Trevi Fountain have crumbled, changing forever the face of that illustrious monument. And that’s just in Rome.

In Naples, the Royal Palace has fractures in its façade and once-glorious fountains in the city’s squares are covered in graffiti. Pompeii is at risk of becoming a wasteland as its ruins disintegrate to dust due to lack of maintenance. In Emilia Romagna, important churches and clock towers damaged in a series of springtime earthquakes will never be repaired. There simply is no money left in Italy’s tightened budget to take care of the country’s cultural heritage.

Austerity measures to combat Italy’s stifling public debt and save the country from default has meant there is little money left over for anything but the bare necessities. But the bigger problem is that basic maintenance on many of the country’s cultural gems has been neglected for years. Recent budget cuts are just the last nail in the sarcophagus. In reality, the culture budget has been the first to be cut for the last several years. A full third—€1.42 billion—has been slashed from the culture budget in the last three years, meaning vital maintenance on some of the country’s most important monuments was never carried out.

“Maintenance does not exist for many of Italy’s most important sites,” center-right senator Diana de Feo told The Daily Beast. “How many more collapses will it take to make it a priority?”

Already, many of the country’s most important monuments have been adopted by private sponsors who are footing the bill. Vital restoration of the ancient Roman Colosseum will begin in 2013, thanks to a €25 million contribution from Tod’s shoe magnate Diego Della Valle. Other monuments, such as Rome’s Trevi Fountain, are up for grabs as the city looks for a savior with a spare €2.5 million to help fix serious fissures caused by below-normal temperatures in Rome that caused the monument’s water to freeze last winter. The city also is hoping someone will help fund a €75 million restoration of the Aurelian walls, which circle the city.

[Andrea]

This is really tragic. Those buildings, walls and fountains are integral to the indescribably beautiful atmosphere in Italy. I was there in 2000. It was so beautiful. Everywhere I looked, more beauty. It is like nowhere I've ever been. It makes you glad to be human. This is a tragedy for everyone.