Tuscany, cradle of art and culture and good living, is offering this year an initiative that reflects its identity. In order to offer culture and well-being, next August an experimental project will be launched entailing the extraordinary opening, even at night, of eighteen Tuscan museums.
The Region Tuscany has allocated for this initiative about 80 thousand euros. The museums that will participate have been selected also for their favourable environmental conditions, such as the presence of green areas. The list of museums that will adhere to the initiative is available on the website of the Region Tuscany.
But the museums will not only keep their doors open. These institutions will also propose themselves as places of well-being, as spaces in which culture naturally meets the needs of well-being. Just like the old proverb that says  mens sana in corpore sano, the dialogue with history, art and culture will not neglect the importance of physical well-being. So, during the hot month of August, the fresh spaces of great buildings will offer their beauty even at night; the shade of historical gardens will allow people to be in contact both with culture and with nature.
And besides the extraordinary openings, there will be many related initiatives, including open-air evenings that will lighten up the courtyards of the beautiful Tuscan cities, tastings of typical products, workshops for children and musical shows.
The initiative has been conceived for a public that does not generally go to museums and for all those (tourists, older people, families) who stay in the city. The initiative, with the eloquent title “Rinfrescatevi la mente” (“refresh your mind”) is proposed as a cultural alternative to evenings in search of entertainment and relaxation, which often end up in shopping centres. Museums will recover their nature of a places where you can also find physical well-being “by proposing cultural contents in a pleasant but rigorous way and – as the councillor for culture of the Region Tuscany pointed out – without distorting their mission and identity”. 
Yet, if communicated in adequate ways, this initiative could meet great success not only among those who are “obliged” to spend the summer in the city, but also among the thousands of tourists that as always will fill the art cities of Tuscany during the holidays. In a moment when Italian tourism is facing the consequences of the high cost of petrol and the euro currency and of the general economic crisis and is experiencing a fall in tourist flows from abroad, initiatives of this type could certainly be attractive also and especially for the public of foreign tourists.
Therefore, the purpose of offering to those who in stay in the city a valid alternative to sterile entertainment from a cultural point of view is admirable. But given the lack of such initiatives, when there is the chance to realize one, it should be exploited on various fronts. Therefore, why shouldn’t the communication be addressed also to tourists who come from other countries? Yet, information regarding this initiative is difficult to find for the Italians; for foreigners it would be practically impossible given that there is no information in other languages.
Obviously, we must recognize the importance of this initiative and bestow upon the organizers the deserved honours for a truly interesting proposal. However, this cannot make us forget the more generalized crisis of the Italian tourist-cultural sector and the need to regain the preferences of a public that is moving towards other European cultural destinations.
Of course, the night-time opening hours alone will not allow our museums to be once again among the top destinations to be visited. What is needed is a greater sensitivity of the people in charge towards these issues and the ability to attract a global public. The ideas are there and apparently there is also the ability to realize interesting programmes. Therefore, we should try to gain the most from these types of efforts and involve a wider public. An investment of 80 thousand euros deserves to achieve maximized results.

(translated by Giorgina Arcuri)