Cultural assets, more transparency in management with the register

Starting from a mapping (on a new basis) of the public heritage, digitisation is one of the main pillars of the recent reform of the Cultural Heritage Code. Although not systemic in scope, Law 40/2026 ("Gazzetta Ufficiale" of 30 March 2026 no. 74), which came into force a few days ago, aims to ensure greater inclusiveness of private individuals in the various levels of heritage management.

Of the two tools designed ad hoc, the first is the creation of the digital register of the assets themselves. Museums, libraries and archives, archaeological areas and parks will have to make available information about the forms of management and the compliance of quality levels in the valorisation. Compared to what is already known, the register archives and provides additional elements such as data on disused properties, information on the state of use of the property, also with a view to the transition from direct to indirect management. In the intentions, the tool should make it possible to monitor, and highlight, "fragile" systems with respect to major attractions, located in defiladed territorial areas or in economically weak areas, e.g. inland areas, villages and mountain communities. More than 80% of visitors were in fact concentrated in just three regions, and in particular 29.7 million, or 48.8%, referred to sites in Lazio, 10.3 million, or 16.9%, to those in Campania, and 9.1 million, or 14.9%, to those in Tuscany. Only the remaining 19.4% of visitors to state sites covered the remaining 17 Italian regions.

At the same time, the regulation establishes the Digital Register of Horizontal Subsidiarity for which a census of private entities interested in the indirect management of publicly owned cultural assets is envisaged, invited to participate in expressions of interest in relation to notices and procedures concerning the entrusting of the indirect management of cultural assets and the concession for the use of real estate belonging to the cultural domain in compliance with the general principles of publicity and transparency. The tool aims to simplify the knowledge process that, at present, individual institutions or entities follow with great difficulty, thus ensuring a lesser procedural burden for the administration in the phase of "search" and identification of the operator or partner and at the same time greater effectiveness in terms of results.

According to the Association of Cultural and Creative Enterprises of Confindustria, which was heard during the approval of the law with first signatory Federico Mollicone (FdI), the contribution of subjects outside the PA 'multiplies the forces committed to placing cultural valorisation at the centre of identity and social cohesion' and more specifically 'there will be an account both of abandoned and disused properties, and of those that do not provide for opening and fruition, with a contribution also to transparency on indirect management, where existing'.