Museums and Monuments in Italy

4,588 museums and similar institutions, both public and private, were open to the public in Italy in 2011: they included 3,847 museums, galleries or collections, 240 archaelogical areas or parks and 501 monuments or monumental compounds.

In Italy, one museum or similar structure can be found in nearly one municipality out of three: a widespread heritage of 1.5 museums/institutes every 100 sq km, one every 13,000 inhabitants.

52.1% of the archaelogical sites are concentrated in the South and the Islands, whereas 48% of museums and 43.1% of monuments are located in the North of the Country.

The arts and archaeology collections are very frequent: fine arts (11.9%), religious art (10.2%) modern and contemporary arts (9.9%), archaeology (15.5%), but ethnography and cultural anthropology (16.9%) and history (11.4%) are also well represented.

In 2011, the Italian museums reached 103,888,764 admissions. Alone, three regions make up 51% of the total admissions: Toscana (22.1%), Lazio (20.1%), Lombardia (8.8%).

The top 15 museums/institutes recorded in 2011 about one million admissions each, and have absorbed nearly 1/3 (30%) visits.

The majority (63.8%) of Italian museums are held by public bodies. 1,909 institutes, i.e. 41.6%, belong to municipal governments and only 9% to the Ministry for Cultural Heritage, Activities and Tourism; State museums attract, however,  over 40 million visits (38.8%).

For information
Socio-demographic and Environmental Statistics Directorate
Fabrizio Maria Arosio
Tel.: 06.4673.7210
arioso@istat.it

Annalisa Cicerchia
Tel. 06.4673.7212
acicerchia@istat.it