The new board of directors of Opera di Santa Croce has announced a three-year plan for the operations of Florence’s beloved basilica. Among the specifics that the management team (four of the seven board members are women) has listed are plans to improve visitor facilities and services, including increased programming and renewed partnerships with tour operators and tour guides.
At the press conference announcing the plan, Opera di Santa Croce’s new president, Irene Sanesi, commented on the importance of ‘Complexes like Santa Croce,’ with its ‘profound roots, rich in history and spirituality,’ to ‘show us the way as people and as a community.’
The events planned for the next 18 months start with a celebration in September of the crowdfunded restoration of the loggia of the Pazzi Chapel, which is nearing completion on time and within budget.
Also scheduled for the autumn is an academic conference series (in Italian), ‘The Tombs of Santa Croce: Art, Science, Music and Literature Archives,’ led by leading art historian Carlo Sisi. In November, as part of the Fifth National Ecclesiastical Conference and Pope Francis’s visit to Florence, Santa Croce will host an exhibition dedicated to Milan-born Giuseppe Castiglione, a Jesuit court painter and missionary. A little-known figure in Europe, in China, Castiglione (called Lang Shining there) is universally regarded as the greatest painter of the eighteenth century.
Throughout 2016, Santa Croce will be the site of events marking the 50th anniversary of the 1966 flood, as the church’s damaged artworks will continue to be restored. Meanwhile, the Opera will be finalizing plans to renovate the museum spaces, with implementation scheduled for 2017.
After the press conference, Sanesi spoke exclusively to The Florentine about Opera di Santa Croce’s planning process: ‘[C]ertain priorities emerged, such as the importance of the communication methods with visitors for an experience that goes beyond aesthetics, the opportunity to avail ourselves with management procedures in line with national and European standards, and the use of financial tools in addition to entrance tickets.’
Sanesi cited the experience gained from the #CrazyforPazzi crowdfunding campaign, which raised over 100,000 USD. Most important, however, she noted, the management team is committed to core values of identity, transparency and ethics: ‘Tomorrow’s Santa Croce will continue to emphasize the importance of participation, ethical accountability and shared objectives.’
‘The issue of transparency is very important,’ she explained. ‘Knowing how resources are used and in what timeframes becomes a tool of communication, in addition to a tool of accountability that can help stakeholders to “choose” Santa Croce’ as an interest, not just a place to visit.’
For details on the upcoming events and exhibitions, see www.santacroceopera.it.
