Growing
Demand for Italian Culture Abroad
Historical
Legacy and Business Promotion
Italy
is an authentic open-air museum that has been
host to a happy marriage of nature and civilization for millennia now.
Growing
demand for Italian culture abroad
The demand for Italian
culture abroad is continually growing: about 65,000 students attend the 4,500
courses of our Culture Institutes around the world, our language is in fifth
place in terms of the number of foreigners who study it and products made in
Italy are highly regarded worldwide as an expression of the industrial and
artistic culture of the Country.
In addition, the 88 Italian
Culture Institutes carried out approximately 2,900 events in 2003 promoting all
the principal sectors of Italian culture. Promoting the Italian
culture and language is a multi-faceted job, conceived as part of Italy's
foreign policy, and includes the promotion of our image as a modern and
technologically developed country, of an "Italian way of life" that is
gaining increasing admiration in the rest of the world and which recognises the
presence of large Italian and Italian-origin communities in many countries.
Historical
legacy and business promotion
The promotion
abroad of scientific and humanistic practice, as well as of the Italian
language, is to be considered fundamental to Italy's political and economic
rapport with foreign countries and to maintaining ties with large Italian
communities abroad. In addition to enhancing Italy's contribution to European and world culture, it
is necessary to ensure that the creative excellence of the past, gradually built
up over the centuries, is recognised as the life-blood of today's excellence in
those sectors that modern production has necessarily ranked as leaders of
ever-expanding markets.
A particularly complex effort, that of constantly maintaining and enhancing the
dialogue with other cultures - those both nearer and farther from our own - on
such a wide and complex range of matters: a cultural dialogue that at times is
the almost exclusive form of contact in situations where dialogue in other
sectors is scarce. Such tasks fall
in Italy to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which carries them out by means of
close and active collaboration with the competent Ministries, first among which
the Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities and that of Universities,
Education and Research.
The assignment of this competence to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms
the fact that Italy and its culture - even in the broadest sense of the term,
which includes everything having to do with the "persona" in its
historical and environmental context: architecture, design, fashion, even wine
and food - is an unavoidable prerogative in forming relations with the rest of
the world.
For more information about
the activities of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the
promotion of culture please click here.
In an
international setting, Italy is particularly engaged in supporting cultural
diversity and dialogue between civilisations, with particular reference to the
European Union context and at the level of the United Nations;is the only
organisation of the family of UN agencies charged with the promotion of
education (programme in support for basic education for all), and of culture,
understood as the common asset of all peoples and nations, developed and
emerging alike, as well as disseminator of democratic models, of preservation
and of the enhancement of natural material and immaterial historic patrimony,
including traditions and languages, sciences, bioethics and biodiversity, all
with the aim of promoting peaceful co-existence amongst peoples.
Italy is also among the top funding countries of UNESCO and is a member of
the Executive Committee, i.e. the directive body of one of the UN's most
important agencies. Moreover, Italy's driving role in UNESCO can be explained,
in the context of world heritage preservation, by the fact that it leads with 39
sites included on the World Heritage List. If,
therefore, our country has the full international right and the political will
to play a driving role in the global context, and in particular at the level of
the United Nations, it will have to continue to make use of the current intense
collaboration established with the UN organization for education, science and
culture.
To reach the UNESCO web site please click here.
For Italian language study:
ILS - Italian Language School. Learn Italian in Apulia at the seaside.
Istituto Italiano. Studying and learning Italian in Florence.
Italica Rai. Trends, genre, works of Italian cinema
Italia mia, a portal for Italian cinema.
Italy, opera's ancestral home, offers visitors a rich
choice of operatic seasons throughout most of the year. Italian theaters are
world-renowned for technical perfection of performances and detailed
magnificence of scenery and costumes. The opera season lasts from December to
June, as do the seasons at Italy
's other major opera houses.