THE WIDESPREAD MUSEUM, CASE STUDY
ROMINA QUARCHIONI, CURATOR OF THE PINACOTECA DI JESI
JESI
21.09.2011
The term "widespread museum" is a relatively new Italian concept, created to express the
continuity between the cultural heritage and the landscape and the close relationship with the land
that features museums of our country. This concept was reworked by the architect Fredi
Drugman in the late Nineties, and it has officially been used for the first time in the law of the
Marche Region No. 6 / 1998 "New rules for the protection and the enhancement of the cultural heritage
of the Marche and for the organization of the widespread museum as a system" to indicate that our
region is one big open-air museum. Art.2 says, in fact, that "in the Marche collections and
museums of local institutions … constitute a widespread museum that can be organized like an unitary
operating system" and that "the target of the whole regional system is to guarantee at least the minimum
levels of quality and quantity of equipment and services necessary for the ordinary protection and
enhancement of the general cultural heritage". In the proposed operating model called “widespread
museum”, the preservation and the enhancement of the entire cultural heritage have the starting
point in the local museums and collections, real hinges of the spread museum. In this way, the
museum acquires a dual role: as a museum in defence of the territory, an institution in which
qualified and competent staff contributes to a continuous control and preservation of the local
cultural heritage and as a museum mirror of the land, able to glue the different dynamic
realities that are around it and that take their own history and identity from it. Museum as a
centre of community services and as a reference point for goods and cultural sites that are in the
surrounding places, whatever they are or whosesoever. The Marche are a truly emblematic case
with 380 museums and collections and 100 theatres (including the historical and the modern ones)
and in addition there are other plentiful cultural institutions in the region.
Below we illustrate some of the tools that the Marche Region has launched since 2008 to work
increasingly in a unified and uniform way throughout the region. They are three basic tools of
knowledge to operate a choice of cultural tourism.
Website of the museums of the Marche
http://musei.cultura.marche.it/web/Home.aspx
In synergy with the websites and communication tools that are already active in the area and
managed by individual museums or by museum institutional networks, the region has achieved a
website of museums in the Marche Region. It is an unitary gate and a tool for highlighting and coordinating the diverse varieties of museums of the region, able to embrace and to communicate
the complex and branched regional cultural realities; it’s one of the cornerstones of the cultural
tourism of the Region Marche.
Into the website of the museums of the Marche region you can find forms of all the museums of
the Marche searching by municipality, by type of museum or even by more thematic paths that
characterize the Marche. In the detailed page of a museum it is available a specific menu that may
allow access to the gallery, to a specific itinerary and even to the catalogue of the pieces of work.
Regional Museum Information System
http://autovalutazione.cultura.marche.it
It's a database of a self-evaluation form developed by the Region Institution and filled by the
manager of each museum. It's a new learning tool, which aims to ascertain the ownership of some
basic requirements necessary for the proper functioning of the museum institutions, as established
by the decree D.M. of 10 May 2001 "Act to address the technical and scientific criteria of operating and
development standards of museums."This ministerial decree identifies 8 operating areas of a museum
with its operating requirements and minimum standards of legal status, financial structure, the
museum's facilities, personnel, security, management and care of collections, the museum's
relationships with the public and related services, relations with the territory. The importance of
this document is its explicit invitation to look at the museum through the eyes of the public,
remembering that it plays a social function by providing a cultural service. In this sense they are
fundamental self-evaluation tools that allow to record gradual advances and progress over time.
The Marche Region has adopted a form-questionnaire to be completed online, through which the
institution manager provides an overview of the museum, according to the eight parameters
(budget, staff, location, security, collections, public etc..) objectively measurable and periodically
updated, thanks to a computerized system, which allows levels of analytic or aggregated reading,
and statistical surveys. This tool provides, if it’s used correctly, many potentialities: self-evaluation
highlights strengths and areas of weakness in every museum, so it’s a management tool of
paramount importance to improve the range of museums, and to start practicable Plans Act of
development. So far some 260 have actually joined the project on 380 existing museums.
Regional Information System for Cultural Heritage - Sirpac
http://sirpac.cultura.marche.it/web/Home.aspx
The catalogue of the cultural heritage of the Marche, born in order to provide the public with a
tool of unitary access, is based on an information system (SIRPaC) that integrates digital assets
collected by the Region as part of its activities, believing that knowledge and documentation of
cultural heritage represent the essential prerequisites for any measure of protection and
enhancement. The consultation of the catalogue offers an overview of the regional heritage. There
are many interrelationships that link the various expressions of cultural identity. Works of art and
memory objects, documents and oral tradition, architectural monuments and the environment:
they are all products of the human action over time, action which always produces new goods and
new landscapes Museums, historic sites and places of culture in general can be explored along with
works of art, archaeological finds, demo-ethno-anthropological goods, historical and scientific
heritage, the tangible and intangible evidence contained therein or represented. The data provided
are visible without any registration and allow a basic consultation of the information, however
sufficient for the correct identification of the goods.
Romina Quarchioni, Curator of the Pinacoteca di Jesi