Abstract

In the Nineties we witnessed a significant change in how Italian cultural heritage was managed: private companies now had the chance to participate in the management of cultural heritage and public administrations established entities able to operate using criteria better suited to the market. Federculture was established as a federation to be a part of these new entities in order to create a specific employment contract and provide its members with support in research. Over the last twenty years Federculture has become an observatory that is able to provide its stakeholders with numbers, estimates, analyses, obtained via direct comparisons and a constant effort in researching the evolution of this system.