OVER SEVENTY THOUSAND VISITORS FOR THE XXVIII EDITION OF CAGLIARI MONUMENTS OPEN
Having averted bad weather, Monumenti Aperti once again won its bet this year and confirmed itself as the most attended of the events promoting Sardinian cultural heritage. Despite the fact that the Cagliari date closed the edition for the first time, the public in fact rewarded the rich program set up for the occasion. Within an hour of the official closing of the event, more than seventy thousand visitors were registered at the 58 open monuments that were narrated by some 4,500 volunteers including students and associations.
An excellent result considering the precarious weather conditions.
This year the most visited monument was the Masonic House with 3558 signatures; followed by the Undergrounds of the San Giovanni di Dio Civil Hospital with 3468 signatures; theBotanical Garden with 2743 signatures, the Church and Crypt of St. Efisio with 2085 signatures, and Palazzo Regio with 2050.
Among the new additions to this edition, the most visited monuments were the Cagliari 1920 History & Gallery – Unipol Domus with 1,400 signatures, the Luigi Cocco Collection Regional Ethnographic Museum with 1160 signatures and the Vico III Lanusei Archaeological Area with 1085.
Thus Cagliari Mayor Massimo Zedda: “Monumenti Aperti confirmed itself as a successful initiative. For two days many sites, monuments, large and small museums have been made usable and every year new ones are added. The fact that they are narrated by operators, associations and young volunteers, thanks to the involvement of educational institutions, makes this event even more engaging. A beautiful moment of culture and collective knowledge.
Our administration has set the goal of reopening several historical sites to the public, not only during Open Monuments, so that they are visited and known all year round. The Roman Amphitheater, the towers and the Villa of Tigellius, just to name a few examples. Thank you to everyone and everyone who made the event possible again this year.”
City Councillor for Culture and Tourism Maria Francesca Chiappe adds, “Time passes but Monumenti Aperti shows no signs of fatigue. On the contrary, there is a great desire to rediscover the beauties of the city with the accompaniment of young people who again this year told the story of the sites to thousands of visitors. On the wave of yet another success, the goal of the Municipality of Cagliari can only be to make all monuments visitable all year round and to reopen as soon as possible those that for various problems are closed to the public.”
Finally, Massimiliano Messina, president of the Imago Mundi OdV association: “Cagliari was an ideal stage to close the XXVIII edition of Monumenti Aperti in the best possible way. The weather, although the initial forecast was not encouraging, kissed us on the forehead and the city responded enthusiastically, I would say exaltingly. In keeping with tradition. Already from the first day on Saturday we immediately caught the positive trend, Sunday confirmed how rooted and established the event is in the capital. Thirty years of history by now and not feeling it: the townspeople continue, forming disciplined rows, to crowd the monuments, both the ‘historical’ ones and the new ones, as many as 10 of which were at the starting ribbons this year, such as the archaeological area of Vico Lanusei, the Cagliari Calcio Museum at the Unipol Domus or the villages of Villanova and the fishing village of Giorgino, the Regional Ethnographic Museum.
Seeing people waiting to visit the Botanical Garden or the Cathedral, the Viceregal Palace or the Masonic House, the fortifications in the Citadel of Museums or the well of San Pancrazio is amazing. To still see the Crypt of Santa Restituta, a symbolic place where everything was born, teeming with visitors is equally amazing.
Our heartfelt and particularly heartfelt thanks go to the key players of Monumenti Aperti: to the schools, the teachers and lecturers, the young student volunteers, the associations. And to Cagliari, which with its ‘Spaces for Dreams,’ as the 2024 theme states, gave us a hard-to-forget finale to the event, the lifeblood of our Organization.”
