Rome's fragmented museums: Carlo Calenda proposes a unified cultural strategy

During Rome's mayoral election campaign, candidate Carlo Calenda proposed a radical cultural policy: unify the city's fragmented museum spaces into a large, modern exhibition hub on the Capitoline Hill, inspired by Paris's successful cultural reorganization (Louvre, Pompidou, Musée d'Orsay). Calenda argues that Rome's future in the European cultural landscape depends on leveraging its ancient history, not on small, dusty, self-referential museums. His proposal sparked fierce criticism from those who fear commodification and loss of character, but architect and critic Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi defends it as a necessary step to give Rome its rightful place as a world cultural capital. Puglisi highlights the absurdity of current fragmentation: state and municipal authorities manage different parts of the Roman Forum, and the didactic museum on ancient Rome is kilometers away at EUR. He calls for overcoming petty fiefdoms and inefficient spending to create a coherent, large-scale museum system that serves the public without Disneyland-style trivialization.