Wednesday,
October 01, 2008
The
ANNOTICO Report
Reuters
By
Stephen Brown
Wednesday October 1, 2008
The headhunter
for the new position of Director General of Italian Museums is Culture Minister
Sandro Bondi, who has
opened up the contest to Italians and foreigners.
"This person
will be at the heart of a major project to look after, and add value to,
The job is part
of a drive to halt the decay of some of the icons of Italy's heritage --
notoriously, the ancient Roman town of Pompeii, one of Italy's top tourist
attractions, which was frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD
79.
The government
has declared a "state of emergency" at Pompeii and appointed a
special commissioner, "to show that we will not stand by idly while faced
with the decay of one of the most important archaeological areas in the
world", Bondi said.
Once
IMPACT ON ECONOMY
Bondi has also named a special
commissioner to help
Resolving
conflicting demands of conservation, tourism and infrastructure would help
improve
Tourism accounts
for 10 percent of economic output but the industry body Federturismo
complained to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that
The turnover of
The government of
Berlusconi, a media mogul whose TV channels are known for soaps and showgirls,
is an easy target for accusations of philistinism.
Bondi, a communist-turned
conservative who is now a senior figure in Berlusconi's Forza
Italia party, may be a published poet but he appalled the arts establishment in
August by saying that he "didn't understand" modern art.
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