Wanted: Directors for 20 of Italy’s leading museums, including the Uffizi in Florence, the Galleria Borghese in Rome and the Accademia in Venice. Strong art history background, management experience and an interest in improving visitor experience a must. Fluency in Italian a definite plus, but not a requirement.
招聘：意大利20家主要博物馆招聘馆长，包括佛罗伦萨的乌菲兹美术馆(Uffizi)、罗马的博尔盖塞美术馆(Galleria Borghese)和威尼斯的学院美术馆(Accademia)。应聘者必须具备深厚的艺术史知识和丰富的管理经验，有兴趣改善游客体验。能讲一口流利的意大利语无疑是个优势，但不是必要条件。

With an advertisement in the Economist and other publications, Italy this month announced its first-ever international search for museum directors, part of a shake-up at its major art and archaeology institutions. The deadline for applications is Feb. 15.
本月，意大利在《经济学家》(Economist)等期刊上发布了这条广告，标志着它首次在国际上寻找博物馆馆长，这是它的主要艺术和考古机构变革的一部分。申请截止日期是2月15日。
Under the current system, the Culture Ministry manages Italy’s museums and directors have little autonomy. The changes are intended to help bring museums closer in line with counterparts like the Louvre and the Prado. They also seek to give directors more influence over budgets and ease the way for them to raise private funds to help offset drastic cuts in state funding.
在目前的体制下，意大利的所有博物馆由文化部管理，馆长们几乎没有自主权。这些变革意在帮助意大利的博物馆跟上卢浮宫和普拉多等同级别博物馆的步伐。他们还想在预算方面赋予博物馆长更多权力，方便馆长们筹集私人资金，以弥补国家资助额的大幅减少。
The goal is also to allow directors to make Italy’s art-rich but often fusty museums easier for tourists to navigate — with better presentation, labels and organization.
意大利的博物馆充满艺术气息，但往往比较陈旧。这次变革的另一个目的是让馆长们提升陈列方式、标牌和组织秩序，更便于游客参观。
“It’s a giant leap ahead,” Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister, said in a recent interview in his ballroom-size office. “Italian museums should be more dynamic. They should have more bookshops, more restaurants. They should be attractive and have more multimedia.”
最近，意大利文化部长达里奥·弗兰切斯基尼(Dario Franceschini)在自己舞厅大小的办公室里接受采访时说，“这是一项重要飞跃。意大利的博物馆应该更有活力。应该有更多书店和餐馆。应该更吸引人，提供更多的多媒体服务。”
Mr. Franceschini has championed the changes at the Culture Ministry as part of the can-do spirit of the government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who faces the challenging task of rousing Italy from a protracted recession.
弗兰切斯基尼认为，文化部的这些变革是总理马泰奥·伦齐(Matteo Renzi)的政府乐观进取精神的体现。马泰奥·伦齐面临着遏制意大利经济长期衰退的艰巨任务。
But the changes have also raised concerns that the new hiring criteria will favor marketing savvy over conservation and risk putting too much power in the hands of revolving-door culture ministers rather than longtime state culture officials. Others said the changes did not provide museums with enough autonomy, given that museum employees will remain part of the Culture Ministry bureaucracy.
但是这些变革也让人们担心，新的聘任标准更注重市场营销意识而非遗产保护，太多会权力落入频频换人的文化部长手中，而不是由长期在任的国家文化官员掌握。还有人说，这些变革并不能让博物馆拥有更多自主权，因为博物馆员工将仍是文化部官僚体制的一部分。
Simply changing directors won’t have any effect “if the state doesn’t change, if the structures of the museum don’t change,” said Antonio Natali, director of the Uffizi. He also said that unless the director has control of the museum’s crucial technical, administrative, legal and personnel offices, then “not even the descent of a new redeemer” would make Italian museums function at their best. Last year, the country’s museums attracted more than 40 million visitors and took in nearly 135 million euros, or $156 million, the Culture Ministry said. By making the most-visited and highest-earning museums more independent, the ministry hopes they will generate more revenue. Under the current system, the proceeds from ticket sales go directly to the state and directors have little incentive to draw more visitors, raise private funds or set up profit-generating cafeterias and shops.
乌菲兹美术馆馆长安东尼奥·纳塔利(Antonio Natali)说，“如果国家不改革，如果博物馆的体制不改变”，那么，只是换馆长不会有什么作用。他还说，除非馆长能控制博物馆的技术、管理、法律和人事等关键部门，那么“即使是新救世主降临”，也无法让意大利的博物馆以最佳状态运转。意大利文化部称，去年意大利的博物馆吸引了4000多万游客，收入近1.35亿欧元，约合1.56亿美元。文化部希望通过让游客最多、收入最高的博物馆更独立，以此来获得更多收入。在目前的体制下，门票收入直接收归国有，馆长们几乎没有动力吸引更多游客、筹集私人资金或者设立赚钱的自助餐厅和商店。
Beyond the 20 top museums, the changes would reorganize thousands of other Italian museums into regional clusters and offer a combined ticket, encouraging tourists to visit multiple museums. “A country with 4,000 museums should see this as a formidable economic resource,” Mr. Franceschini said. “Italy’s challenge is to offer quality tourism,” he added.
除了那20个主要博物馆，这次变革还将对意大利的其他几千个博物馆进行区域重组，提供联票，鼓励游客多参观几个博物馆。“一个有4000个博物馆的国家应该将博物馆视为强大的经济来源，”弗兰切斯基尼说。他补充说，“意大利面临的挑战是提供高质量的旅游产品。”
The 20 top museums include some of the most-visited in Italy — the Uffizi, the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the Archaeological Museum in Naples — but also sites that the ministry thinks have untapped potential, like the archaeological museums in Taranto and Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.
这20个主要博物馆包括意大利的一些游客最多的博物馆，比如乌菲兹美术馆、米兰的布雷拉画廊(Pinacoteca di Brera)和那不勒斯的考古博物馆，但是这位文化部长认为，还有其他一些博物馆也具有开发潜力，比如塔兰托的考古博物馆和意大利南部的雷焦卡拉布里亚博物馆。
The new directors are expected to be in place by the summer and will serve four-year terms before the positions reopen. The current museum directors — typically experts in art history, archaeology or architecture but for the most part with little professional training in arts management — will have to reapply for their own jobs. Mr. Natali of the Uffizi said he would do so “to keep faith in my dignity as a man.” Since the job was posted on Jan. 8, at least 50 people have applied. The Italian-language application has been downloaded 12,000 times and the English application 50 times, a spokesman for the Culture Ministry said.
新馆长将于夏季就任，任职四年。目前的博物馆长大多是艺术史、考古或建筑方面的专家，大多几乎没有接受过艺术管理方面的专业培训，他们将不得不重新申请自己的职位。乌菲兹博物馆的馆长纳塔利说，“为了保持做人的尊严”，他也会申请。自1月8日该职位在网上公布起，至少已有50人申请。文化部的一位发言人说，意大利语申请表被下载了1.2万次，英语申请表被下载了50次。
Mr. Franceschini said he hoped the search would attract international applicants. But while salaries for the new directors — from 78,000 euros ($91,000) to 145,000 euros ($170,000) — are high for Italy and competitive in Europe, they pale in comparison to those of their counterparts in the United States, where the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York earns more than $1 million a year.
弗兰切斯基尼说，他希望这次招聘能吸引国际申请者。不过，虽然新馆长的年薪——7.8万欧元（约合9.1万美元）至14.5万欧元（约合17万美元）——在意大利算是挺高的，在欧洲也有竞争力，但与美国同行的年薪相比大为逊色。纽约大都会艺术博物馆馆长的年薪超过100万美元。
Most Italian cultural experts welcomed the changes, with some reservations. “It opens the possibility for a new era of management of Italian museums,” said Stefano Baia Curioni, a professor of cultural policy at Bocconi University in Milan. “But the crucial point is that the minister has to nominate a committee that’s outside of the game, that can make selection in an independent way.”
意大利的大部分文化专家欢迎这些变革，但也有一些保留意见。“它为意大利博物馆管理进入新时代提供了一种可能性，”米兰博科尼大学文化政策教授斯特凡诺·巴亚·库廖尼(Stefano Baia Curioni)说，“但关键是文化部长必须在组建一个利益圈之外的委员会，保证选拔独立进行。”
Under the present system, museum directors are named by career state culture officials, not by the minister, who is a political appointee. After the Feb. 15 deadline, a five-member committee selected by Mr. Franceschini will choose a shortlist of three candidates for each museum, and he will make the final decisions this spring. Mr. Franceschini dismissed the idea that the changes would centralize power and run the risk of cronyism. “The selection procedure presupposes that very high-level candidates will apply,” he said, adding that committee members will also be able to give their recommendations.
在目前的体制下，博物馆馆长由国家文化人事官员任命，而不是由文化部长任命。文化部长是政治任命。2月15日申请截止后，弗兰切斯基尼组建的五人委员会将为每个博物馆挑选三位候选人，今年春天弗兰切斯基尼将做出最后选择。有人认为这些变革会导致权力集中或任人唯亲，弗兰切斯基尼反驳了这些观点。“选拔程序的先决条件是有很高水平的候选人申请，”他说。他补充说，委员会成员也可以做出推荐。
Some worry that the changes might be the first step toward dismantling an established and widely respected system of cultural stewardship and replacing it with one that favors crowd-pleasing blockbuster shows over quality and research.
有些人担心，这些变革可能会动摇文化管理工作广受尊敬的悠久体制，代之以更注重迎合大众的体制，更看重制造轰动性展览，而非质量与研究。
“One word of caution is that museums have to educate and not entertain, that’s the bottom line,” said Daniel Berger, a longtime adviser to the Culture Ministry. “They are the font of Italy’s cultural heritage and collective memory.”
“需要注意的是，博物馆的意义在于教育，而非娱乐，这是底线，”文化部资深顾问丹尼尔·贝格尔(Daniel Berger)说，“它们是意大利文化遗产和集体记忆的根本。”
Many experts acknowledge that the ministry’s mandate is primarily conservation, rather than making museums appealing to visitors.
很多专家承认，文化部的主要任务是保护，而非让博物馆更吸引游客。
“There is social, cultural, educational value in museums that is underused because of the current system of cultural management,” said James Bradburne, the director general of the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. “If, on the other hand, it is just a way to get politicians closer to the decision-making structure to transform them into tourist cash cows,” he added, “then it’s a mistake.”
“由于目前的文化管理体制，博物馆的社会、文化和教育价值没有得到充分利用，”佛罗伦萨斯特罗齐宫(Palazzo Strozzi)的总负责人詹姆斯·布拉德伯恩(James Bradburne)说。“另一方面，如果它只是为了让政客们更有决策权，把博物馆变成摇钱树，”他补充说，“那将是一个错误。”