Bill to redistribute public works and artefacts on the basis of ‘provenance’

On 25 March 2026, Guido Quintino Liris , a senator for Fratelli d’Italia , tabled a bill in the Senate entitled “Provisions for the promotion of local areas and the rotation of cultural heritage exhibits within their regions of origin”. Subsequently, on 29 July 2026, the bill was referred to the Culture Committee of the Senate to begin the legislative process.
The provisions of the draft bill aim to promote cultural heritage owned by public bodies (the State, regions, local authorities and other public bodies), which is permanently exhibited in museums, foundations or cultural institutions other than the municipality of its original provenance or discovery, and recognised as being of significant historical, artistic, archaeological or demo-ethno-anthropological interest, through the establishment of a system of temporary exhibition rotations in the territories of their original provenance or discovery (Art. 1, para. 1).
Through a system of inter-museum loans lasting up to 90 days, the draft law aims to strengthen the sense of identity between local communities and their cultural heritage, promote the balanced distribution of cultural opportunities across the country, foster the tourism and cultural development of the municipalities concerned, and ensure the protection, security and integrity of the cultural heritage items involved.

Tomba 669, corredo del III secolo a. C., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Melfi

In accordance with Article 3, applications for loans must be submitted to the Ministry of Culture by ‘the local authorities within whose territory the cultural asset was originally discovered, created or historically situated’. Applicants may submit one application per year for each item, specifying: the loan period (which must not exceed three months), the exhibition venue, the security, conservation and insurance measures to be put in place, and the cultural and scientific project associated with the exhibition. It will then be up to the Ministry of Culture to decide whether to approve the loan application, subject to the opinion of the relevant superintendency and the institution or body holding the artefact, taking into account the compatibility of the request with the requirements of protection and conservation. In particular, the Ministry will take into account the structural and technical suitability of the exhibition venue, the venue’s compliance with national and international safety and conservation standards, and the insurance cover for the entire duration of the transfer – including transport and the period on site – to be borne by the applicant local authority. Where the Ministry of Culture identifies a need to protect the artefact or a potential risk to its integrity, authorisation must be refused by means of a reasoned decision.
Subject to a favourable opinion from the Ministry, Article 5 of the draft bill provides for the signing of a trilateral cooperation agreement for the temporary exhibition between the Ministry of Culture, the body holding the artefact and the applicant local authority, covering: the duration and arrangements for the transfer of the artefact, the responsibilities of the parties, the allocation of costs for transport, security and insurance, and any joint cultural initiatives.

The bill tabled by Mr Liris, whilst laudable in its intentions, would appear, as it stands, not to be sufficiently innovative from a legal perspective. Under Article 2 of the bill, as proposed, no distinction is made regarding the cultural heritage covered by the provisions. The only clarification is that the cultural heritage covered by the law must be ‘permanently exhibited in museums, foundations or cultural institutions other than the municipality of their original provenance or discovery’. This would effectively exclude those artefacts which, for whatever reason, are not on display but are held in storage, and would mark a departure from the 2021 initiative ‘100 works return home’, launched by the former Minister Dario Franceschini, under which 100 works held in the storage facilities of 14 of Italia’s most important museums were returned, for a period of ten years, to the museums of origin for which they had been intended. In that instance, the decision had been taken in advance by the Ministry, based on requests from local institutions.

Caramica canosina, IV-II secolo a.C., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Canosa

Pursuant to Article 48(2) of Legislative Decree 42/2004, the body lending the cultural assets in question must submit a request for authorisation for their transfer ‘at least four months before the start of the event’. Meanwhile, the draft bill stipulates that only ‘the municipalities within whose territory the cultural asset was originally discovered, created or historically situated’ may submit an application to the Ministry of Cultural Heritage (MiC), i.e. the potential beneficiary of the loan. In the absence of precise timeframes, the text therefore appears to refer to the standard four months prior to the exhibition or event, whilst authorisation must be granted within three months of the request (as recently provided for by Law No. 40 of 17 March 2026).

This shift in the entity entitled to apply for the loan – which places emphasis on local authorities having some connection with the cultural asset – appears to be in line with the principles of the Faro Convention, ratified by Law No. 133 of 1 October 2020, No. 133, which ratified and implemented the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, done at Faro on 27 October 2005. The latter, in recognising the right of heritage communities to access cultural heritage, emphasises precisely that link between a work and the territory that produced or preserved it, the very same principle that appears to inspire the Liris proposal, temporarily restoring to peripheral communities the opportunity to reclaim, even if only for a limited period, a heritage they feel is their own.