Abstract

This essay is aimed to contribute to a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the role of major Italian private organizations that implement a stable qualified programming, oriented towards contemporary artistic promotion/production and accessible to the public. Therefore, research findings enhance the role of private patronage and do not intend to provide an exhaustive mapping of all Italian private non-profit organizations operating in the contemporary art sector. The 63 organizations surveyed are a sample of several foundations set up on the initiative of collectors, patrons, artists, of corporate or banking origin, but also of the network of cultural associations distributed throughout Italy, as well as of some for profit organizations (joint stock companies and limited liability companies). The activities of all these entities are accessible to the public and generate a dynamic system that experiments, researches, designs, realizes, freeing energies and resources capable of even transforming the territories.