Musei comunali e statali dopo l’Unità d’Italia: verbali, norme, rilevazioni per il pubblico ipotizzato, favorito, reale

Municipal and state museums after the Unification of Italy: minutes, regulations, surveys for the assumed, favoured, real public The paper examines – weaving together political-institutional history, administrative management, and cultural and social reception of museums – three types of institutional sources in the post-unification period of two decades, a period in which the processes of public devolution of ecclesiastical heritage and nation building strongly involved the museum institution. Type No. 1: The minutes of city councils. In the motivations with which municipalities establish new picture galleries and museums, the dimension of “public” appears often and with different meanings: young people to be educated, local cultural elites to be satisfied, tourists to be attracted. The result is a panorama of the general recipient of the museum both real and as a rhetorical element of a nascent “heritage discourse”: it is the hoped-for and assumed public. Type No. 2: Museum regulations. The opening to the public brings with it regulations on schedules, visiting arrangements, replacement of the “tip to the janitor” with the “entrance fee”. Regulations of state museums (from Ministerial Decree 18.09.1862 on the Pompeii excavations to Law 2554, 27.05.1875) and municipalities identify categories of publics with reduced or free admission, promotional tools such as general free admission days; weekly, monthly or annual subscriptions for individuals and families and for several city institutes. The result is a choice of limitation of revenue to favor categories identified as the public sought and favored. Type No. 3: Tickets. The economic implication of admissions obliges the museums to provide, usually monthly, the relevant official general and specific data. Properly processed, such series provide valuable quantitative and qualitative in formation to “measure” and identify the actual and real audience. The three types of sources will also be examined in connection with other sources, both institutional and non-institutional, from the perspective of studying post-unification museum policy toward the public, its effectiveness, and its actual cultural and social reception.