A budget amendment will "clarify"
museum appointments and "overcome" last week's rejection by the
Lazio regional administrative court (TAR) of five out of 20
directors recently appointed via an international selection
process, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said Monday.
The Lazio TAR on Thursday struck down five of the 20
appointments for top Italian museums that were recently put out
to international selection to attract the best possible
candidates.
The TAR ruled against the five because the tender was open to
non-Italians, interviews took place behind closed doors, and
other technicalities.
The controversial ruling affected four Italians and one
Austrian, in Mantua, Modena, Naples, Reggio Calabria and
Taranto.
Franceschini said the government would appeal while both
ex-premier Matteo Renzi and Justice Minister Andrea Orlando said
the TARs must be reformed.
"The world has seen Italian museums change in two years and
now the Lazio TAR cancels the appointment of 5 directors,"
Franceschini said via Twitter.
"I'm speechless".
"We'll immediately appeal to (top administrative court) the
Council of State," he said.
"I'm worried about how Italy looks to the rest of the world
and about the practical consequences, because as of today some
museums don't have a director.
"I find it strange that the sentence talks of foreigners,
when in reality they are European directors and this contrasts
with the European Court of Justice and the Council of State.
"I am an experienced lawyer and politician. I know that you
should not comment on sentences but combat them in the right
place". He added that he was astounded that the TAR had
described the procedure as confused.
"The international selection was conducted by an impartial
committee," he said.
Franceschini added that the museum directors affected by the
Lazio TAR's ruling "will be replaced ad interim".
"The sentence has already been published and so the museums
are effectively without directors," he added.
"These people left everything and the reform was already
bringing about great change, but it has been blocked as of
today.
"It is absurd to make distinctions on the candidates'
nationality. The director of the National Gallery is Italian,
while the British Museum's is German. It's a truly great damage
to our image".
Ex-premier and Democratic Party (PD) leader Renzi slammed the
TAR ruling and said the government should have reformed the
TARs.
"The fact that the Lazio TAR has annulled our decision
deserves institutional respect...but confirms, yet again, that
we cannot be a country founded on cavils and appeals," he said
on Facebook.
"We did not make a mistake in trying to change museums; we
made a mistake because we did not try to change the TARs".
Justice Minister Orlando, another top member of the PD,
agreed that the TARs should be changed.
"The TARs should be changed, without demonising them but they
certainly should be changed by better defining what is the ambit
of competence of politics and what is the ambit of competence of
an administrative court, which often enters into the merits of
choices that should be exclusively the province of politics,"
said Orlando.
Asked if the TARs too often infringed on the political
sphere, Orlando replied "Yes".
TAR sources said that "rather than changing the TARs, laws
should be changed".
One Austrian and four Italians were among the five museum
chiefs scrubbed by the TAR.
Here are pen-pix of the five.
1) PETER ASSMAN (MANTUA DUCAL PALACE): 63, art historian.
Austrian, studied and worked in Florence, at the Deutsches
Kunsthistorisches Institut. From 2002 to 2012 president of the
Austrian museum association. Directed Obersterreichischen
Landenmuseen di Linz and Angerlehner Museum in Thalheim bei
Wels. Teaches at Johannes Kepler Universitat in Linz and
University of Vienna. Since 2011 on scientific committee of
Buonconsiglio Castle Museum in Trento.
2) MARTINA BAGNOLI (GALLERIA ESTENSE IN MODENA): 53 art
historian. Born in Bolzano, graduated from Cambridge in art
history and got a phD cum laude from the Johns Hopkins
University of Baltimore in 1999. From 2003 at Baltimore's
Walters Art Museum. Also worked in other US museums including
National Gallery of Art in Washington.
3) EVA DEGLI INNOCENTI (MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NAZIONALE IN
TARANTO): 41, archaeologist. Born in Pistoia, graduated from
Pisa, then got European research doctorate from Siena
University. Was a director at the Coriosolis museum of the
Plancot Ple'lan community in Brittany. From 1995 to 2008 led
digs in Italy and Tunisia.
4) PAOLO GIULIERINI (MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NAZIONALE OF NAPLES):
48, archaeologist. Born in Cortona, graduated in archeaology
with specialisation in Etruscanology from Florence University.
Director of the Museum of the Etruscan Academy and city of
Cortona, where he has worked since 2001, and has had several
other museum posts.
5) CARMELO MALACRINO (MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NAZIONALE OF REGGIO
CALABRIA): 46, archaeologist and architect. Born in Catanzaro,
graduated in architecture in Florence and specialised in
Archaeology and Ancient Architecture at Athens. From 2010
researcher in history of architecture at the Universita'
Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria. In 2005 got doctorate in
history of architecture in Venice.
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