Then came Alberto Ronchey, who was culture minister from 1992 to 1994 and helped push through a 1993 reform of the state museum sector that lengthened opening hours and allowed private companies to operate services like ticketing, bookstores and restaurants.
"Cooperation between the private and public sector has improved the situation enormously, both from a qualitative and quantitative point of view," said Albino Ruberti, managing director of Zetema, which provides services to Rome's civic museum.
Despite the inroads made by the Ronchey law and growing museum attendance, experts say the full economic potential of cultural tourism in Italy has not been fully exploited. Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said in a recent interview that he had formed a committee to examine the legislation that determined how museums were run, and promised a "radical reform" by the summer.
Unlike many other cultural institutions, the Vatican Museums understood the importance of merchandising early on. They were among the first museums to have audio guides, and a restaurant has operated within its walls since 1975. It has also been selling guidebooks and monographs on its collections for some 20 years, recently branching out into new lines, like the high-end Vatican Library Collection, which includes merchandise like reproductions of documents from the Vatican's archives and facsimiles of papal seals.
But when it comes to opening hours, some critics say that the usually forward-looking Vatican Museums seem to be regressing.
"There are always complaints when you have change," Buranelli said. But in the long run, the only thing that matters, he said, was to "resolve the overcrowding issue."
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