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The establishment of the NMS is closely linked to the reformation of the then Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (now Ministry of Culture) in 2014, which classified the public use of museums and places of cultural interest as within the scope of integrated management.

 

The establishment of a nationwide museum network is part of the long process of defining quality standards for Italian museums, which began as early as the end of the last century, engaging collaboratively the ministry, regional authorities, local authorities and museum experts. The main stages in this process are represented by the following legal acts:

• Art. 150 of Legislative Decree No 112 of 1998, on the “Transfer of the administrative functions and duties of the State to regional and local authorities, in application of the Chapter I of Law No 59 of 15 March 1997;
• Ministerial Decree of 10 May 2001 on the “Official guidelines on technical and scientific criteria and standards of museum operation and development";
• regional legislation on quality requirements and forms of quality certification;
• Art. 114 of Legislative Decree No 42 of 2004, on the "Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape (...)"; 
• Prime Ministerial Decree No 171 of 2014, on “Regulations for the organisation of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, the offices that work directly with the Ministry and the Independent Performance Evaluation Body (...)”;
• Art. 7 of the Ministerial Decree of 23 December 2014 on the “Organisation and operation of state-owned museums”.

The National Museum System, which is managed by the Directorate-General of Museums, aims to establish an integrated governance of the heritage guided by principles of sustainability, innovation and participation, involving not only state-owned museums and places of cultural interest but also regionally and municipally-owned places, diocesan museums and privately, university or military-run museums.

The project has the following mission:

• to enhance the use of cultural heritage as a whole, from smaller, lesser-known museums to major attractions;
• to guarantee quality public access and greater protection of cultural property by defining standardised levels of quality for all places of cultural interest in the system;
• to foster the development of culture;
• to encourage the generation of economies of scale, including the shared provision of professional services and expertise among the institutions that are part of the MNS.

What are standardised levels of quality?

The standardised levels of quality are the tool adopted to implement the NMS and achieve its aims, drawn up in implementation of Article 114 of the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, by the Commission for Standardised Levels of Quality for the promotion of museums (Art. 1, par 2, of Ministerial Decree 113/2018). 

They are the result of joint work by the Ministry, regional and local authorities and the ICOM (International Council of Museums), with the support of university lecturers, civil servants and experts in the museum sector and in the management and enhancement of cultural heritage. For museums, they are an important check-list for achieving minimum quality standards and also a support tool for defining improvement targets.

The levels are divided into minimum standards and improvement targets and are broken down into three areas:

1. organisation (legal status, accounting and finance, structure, activities, staff);
2. collections (regular monitoring of the state of conservation of the heritage; formalised management and control of handling procedures; heritage expansion; heritage registration, documentation and cataloguing; permanent exhibition; temporary exhibition; study and research programmes and activities; organisation of repositories);
3. communication and relations with the local area (public relations and communication, relations with the local area and stakeholders).

The museum heritage in Italy has approximately 5,000 state-owned and non, public and private, civic, diocesan, university and military institutions. The NMS is therefore made up of a wide variety of venues and locations, including not only museums, but also archaeological sites and parks, monument complexes, churches, abbeys, castles and forts, spread all over Italy. The numerous sites included on the UNESCO World Heritage List (https://www.unesco.beniculturali.it/) is a demonstration of the great wealth of Italian cultural heritage.

The Ministry of Culture's museums represent about 10% of the museums in Italy and, for the most part, belong to the Directorate-General of Museums. In particular, the reorganisations of the ministry in 2014 and 2019 distinguished the institutes with special autonomy – currently 43 – from the non-autonomous museums belonging to regional coordination bodies, the 17 Regional Museum Complexes with the Rome Museum Complex. To these are added the museum institutes belonging to other Directorates-General of the ministry: Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape; Education, Research and Cultural Institutes; and Libraries and Copyright.

In addition, public museums include those belonging to other ministries, such as the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Education, along with university, regional, provincial and civic museums. There are also numerous private museums, such as diocesan, private foundation and corporate museums.

"The National Museum System is composed of state-owned museums and other places of cultural interest, as referred to in Article 101 of the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code, as well as other publicly-owned museums, private museums and other public or private places of cultural interest, which, on a voluntary basis and in accordance with the procedures laid down in this decree, apply for accreditation." (Art. 2, par 1, Ministerial Decree of 21 February 2018)

The NMS is open to all museums, monument complexes, archaeological parks and areas, as well as places of cultural interest, both public – state-owned and non – and private, which, on a voluntary basis, apply for accreditation in the manner defined in the regulations: 

 

• Ministerial Decree of 21 February 2018 (Ministerial Decree 113/2018), on the "Adoption of standardised minimum levels of quality for public museums and places of cultural interest and implementation of the National Museum System" published in  Gazzetta Ufficiale of the Italian Republic No 78 of 4 April 2018;
• Decree of the Directorate-General of Museums of 20 June 2018, on the "First methods of organisation and operation of the National Museum System."

Ministerial Decree 113/2018 sets out different accreditation procedures depending on whether museums are state-owned or not.

The Directorate-General of Museums has set up a system for connecting and accrediting museums by means of a self-assessment questionnaire on how far they meet quality requirements. The questionnaire is completed and submitted by the museum director applying for accreditation to:

• the Directorate-General of Museums for applications by state-owned museums;
• the relevant regional authority for applications by non-state-owned museums.

Museums that reach the minimum threshold identified are admitted to the NMS; those that fail to achieve the required quality are in any case registered with the NMS in order to undertake a path growth and learning on museum standards.

The list of NMS member museums is published on the website of the Directorate-General of Museums and updated periodically.