Regional Directorate for Museums
What is its role? What are its functions? How is it organized?
The Puglia Regional Museum Directorate, a peripheral body of the Ministry of Culture, operates on the regional territory with the aim of enhancing and making the state museums, monuments and archaeological areas accessible. Articulation of the General Directorate of Museums, the Regional Directorate favors continuous dialogue between state and local bodies, between different public and private museums in the area, promoting the establishment of the regional museum system and ensuring an integrated cultural offer of quality. It encourages the active participation of communities by promoting awareness projects and public fundraising campaigns in support of cultural heritage.
Direction
Since 2010 Luca Mercuri, Archaeologist Officer at the Ministry of Culture, with duties of protection, enhancement, promotion and communication of cultural heritage, holds the role of Regional Director of Puglia Museums.
DRM services
It guides and coordinates state museums
It plans the management, enhancement, communication and promotional activities of the regional museum system, in close contact with the directors of the museums it coordinates.
Enhance cultural heritage
It defines common enhancement strategies and objectives for the widest use of cultural heritage and for the creation of integrated museum services.
It guarantees quality standards
It ensures high quality standards in the management and communication, in didactic and technological innovation, of the museums of its competence.
Territorial enhancement
It collaborates with state and local bodies for the definition of strategic programs and plans for the cultural development of the territory.
It promotes cultural itineraries
It works with local authorities and institutions for the integration of fruition routes and services in tourist-cultural itineraries.
Encourage participation
It promotes and manages awareness raising projects and public fundraising campaigns in support of cultural heritage.
The museum is a permanent non-profit institution serving society, which carries out research, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage.
Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums promote diversity and sustainability.
They operate and communicate ethically and professionally and with the participation of communities, offering diversified experiences for education, pleasure, reflection and knowledge sharing.
Discover the territory
The Apulian territory is characterized by the extraordinary variety of the landscape that bears the imprint of a history spanning hundreds of millions of years; with an uncommon geographical profile in the peninsular landscape, Puglia takes on different faces and shapes, from the Tavoliere in the north of the region to the Murgia area characterized by the wide karst plateau that unites central Puglia and eastern Basilicata; from the Itria Valley, extended between the centers of Locorotondo, Cisternino and Martinafranca, up to over 865 kilometers of coastline between the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic. <br>From the Capitanata district to the deep south of Salento, the Puglia Regional Museum Directorate, formerly a Museum Pole established following the reform of the then Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, manages and coordinates the activities of use and enhancement of fifteen places of culture state governments of an extremely diversified nature and with a multiplicity of cultural offerings; these include museums and archaeological parks in Manfredonia and Siponto, Canne della Battaglia, Canosa and Ruvo di Puglia, Gioia del Colle and Altamura up to Egnazia in the Brindisi area; a picture gallery in Bitonto, the amphitheater and the Roman theater in Lecce; finally the castles in Bari, Trani, Copertino (Lecce) and Castel del Monte, declared Unesco Heritage since 1996.
Reference legislation
In 2014, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism introduced great innovations in the organization of the Italian museum system, defining the mission of museums and new management methods. To find out more, consult the dedicated section on the website of the Directorate General for Museums.