The Minicifre of Culture 2024 narrates the sector

The edition of 'Minicifers of Culture 2024' is the phygital collection, printed or online, in which statistical data, graphs, tables, at regional and national level converge to show an almost complete and comprehensive picture of the cultural and creative sector. The report offers a comparison of data from eight thematic clusters, such as: cultural heritage; libraries and archives; visual and plastic arts, contemporary architecture and design; publishing and press; entertainment; training and employment in culture; economic resources for culture; well-being, health and culture. Now in its second edition, the project takes up the publication of the same name edited between 2009 and 2014 by the Study Office of the then General Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture and in its new guise is enriched with new content provided by the MiC and numerous experts in the sector, public and private bodies and research institutes. The 2024 edition, produced by the General Directorate for Education, Research and Cultural Institutes in collaboration with the Fondazione Scuola dei beni e delle attività culturali, Cles, Pts, and the Universities of Bologna and Torvergata in Rome, analyses the three-year period 2021-2023, highlighting the signs of post-pandemic recovery and providing useful data to assess what changes have taken place in the sector in terms of demand, supply and cultural policies. The current edition follows on from the 2023 edition that analysed the five-year period 2018-2022, that particular historical moment that profoundly affected cultural supply and fruition.

In 2023, state-owned museums and cultural sites reached a number of visitors that has never been equalled in previous time series, in fact, 57.7 million visitors were recorded, a clear increase compared to 2018, when there were 30.5 million visitors. If one broadens the spectrum of the analysis to all museums, not only state-owned, but also regional, municipal and private museums, there is a clear decrease, i.e. 107 million visitors in 2023, compared to 128 million in 2018. The most visited museum is the Colosseum Archaeological Park with more than 12 million visitors in 2023, followed at a great distance and tied with just over 5.1 million visitors by the Pantheon and the Uffizi Gallery.

When analysing the figure for visits to archaeological sites/monuments, the territorial differences appear significant: while high cultural participation was recorded in the North of the country, the regions of the South were always below the national average. While again in 2023 the most visited exhibition was 'Van Gogh. Masterpieces from the Kröller-Müller Museum' held between 2022 and 2023 in Rome at the location of the Palazzo Bonaparte. In 2023, the indicator measuring the levels of cultural participation outside the home of the population aged 6 and over stood at 35.2 per cent, an increase compared to 2022 (23.1 per cent). For the first time in 4 years, the value returns to the levels observed in the pre-pandemic period (in 2019 it was 35.1%). The percentage of people aged 6 years and over who went to the library at least once in the 12 months preceding the interview also increased, from 10.2% in 2022 to 12.4% in 2023, but without returning to 2019 levels (15.3%) (BES 2023).

According to ISTAT, with regard to the performing arts audience, the largest increase recorded in the three-year period 2021-2023 is that of attendance at cinema performances (up from 9% to almost 41%) followed by theatre performances (up from 3% to almost 20%) and light music and jazz concerts (up from 3.7% to 21.7%). According to SIAE data, in 2023 the number of concerts exceeded the number recorded in 2019 by more than 60%, while theatre performances increased by 11%.
In 2023, according to Eurostat data, there were 825,100 workers employed in the cultural sector, or 3.5% of the total employed in Italy. This figure places Italy in 20th place in the EU ranking of workers in culture, a figure that should be read in comparison with public spending on culture where our country ranks at the bottom of the Eurostat 2022 ranking. Returning to employment, it is noted that the majority are men (55%) and, in three cases out of four, aged between 30 and 59, while the under-30s represent only 13% of the total, despite having increased by 21% since 2021

"Culture Minima is a working tool for making choices and defining paths," recalls Onofrio Cutaia, Special Commissioner of the Fondazione Scuola dei beni e delle attività culturali. - Quantitative measurement and the use of reliable data are proving to be increasingly strategic elements in decision-making processes and for the implementation of effective public policies'. To Cutaia's statements, we add that the Minicifre collection proves to be a very useful tool for analysing the deep structural differences between the North and the South of the country and the meagre value of public spending on culture of 8.9 billion euros (2022), equal to 0.8% of the total compared to 1.5% in France and the Netherlands and 1.3% of the EU average. The MiC's allocation in 2023 was EUR 3.6 billion compared to EUR 4.3 billion in 2022 (-18% on 2022, but +26% on 2019), ranking 13th out of 15 ministries for the total amount of resources allocated. A truly discouraging situation.