Nip/Tuck: A Facelift for the Colosseum?

Ear­lier this sum­mer, the Min­istry ofI­taly announced that Italy was going to seek pri­vate spon­sor­ship for the Colos­seum, to clean it, sta­bi­lize the struc­ture, change the fenc­ing, make upper floors and under­ground areas (the famed hypogeum) acces­si­ble. A noble cause but seek­ing out pri­vate spon­sors has caused quite a stir, not least of all because of the failed attempt at spon­sor­ship by the Banca di Roma, circa 1990s,(promised funds but lit­tle action) and today’s gar­ish and claus­tropo­bic use of bill­boards gar­ishly to cover restora­tions in the his­toric cen­ter. If such in your face adverts are what is required to fund the restora­tion of build­ings, then the pub­lic seems divided between not car­ing and being insulted.

With this new attempt at spon­sor­ship of Rome’s cul­tural her­itage, no less than Rome’s most impor­tant, well-known mon­u­ment, the Colos­seum, the Min­istry of Cul­ture is tak­ing a bold step
for­ward into the 21st cen­tury with pri­vate spon­sor­ship. They have cited strict mea­sures to guar­an­tee that not only will spon­sors be appro­pri­ately rec­og­nized and vis­i­ble, but done so in a taste­ful and reduced manner.

There is so much poten­tial to find new, out­side funds for the preser­va­tion of Rome’s mon­u­ments. Doing it right (mean­ing suc­cess­ful spon­sor­ship to both pub­lic and aca­d­e­mics) with the Colos­seum would open up the flood­gates, as it were, to have for­eign and pri­vate enti­ties help the min­istry in its mis­sion to pre­serve Ital­ian cul­tural her­itage. I can see the great poten­tial as I’ve seen many suc­cess­ful cam­paigns and projects in the US that have to pre­served nature, high­ways (con­sid­er­ing the adopt-a-highway ini­tia­tives), monuments.

The Colos­seum spon­sor­ship project is truly promis­ing. But I think that the min­istry can go fur­ther, beyond the clean­ing, struc­tural work, gate, lights. They can be big­ger and bolder, some­thing with real teeth, and make the Colos­seum spon­sor­ship project part of a larger cam­paign to clean Rome, instill pride and respect in the cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors. See for exam­ple the Retake Rome ini­tia­tive to bat­tle graf­fiti in Rome. Four mil­lion vis­i­tors to the Colos­seum are watch­ing and wait­ing to see what happens.

The suc­cess­ful case for pri­vate spon­sor­ship is, of course, the Sis­tine Chapel. Four mil­lion vis­i­tors see it, too, each year, but just this fall, the Vat­i­can has sounded the alarm: humid­ity (breath) and dust from vis­i­tors is dam­ag­ing the fres­coes. They are in the process of cre­at­ing a new con­ser­va­tion ini­tia­tive, one that is quite tricky because they do not want to cut off the pub­lic from the art­work. This kind of del­i­cate bal­anc­ing act is part of the ongo­ing mis­sion of con­ser­va­tors around the world. It’s mostly a thank­less job, but essen­tial. It’s never easy, and it’s never cheap, but these are the require­ments to pro­tect the world’s past.

By the way, the BBC is on the cam­paign for Colos­seum spon­sor­ship– check out Dun­can Kennedy’s news arti­cle “Italy’s dilemma over com­mer­cial­is­ing the Colos­seum” and BBC video “Could adverts appear on the Colosseum?”

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