From Rutelli’s “Please visit Italy” to Franceschini’s “Very nice” and Renzi’s ice creams, all the flops

«See the website. But please, visit Italy» chanted the then Minister of Cultural Heritage Francesco Rutelli. Listening to it now, English is scholastic and not even that bad. But when it debuted in 2007, it was inundated with criticism and ridicule. Both for its not too brilliant interpretation and for the italia.it platform. With the video «Please visit Italy» the italia.it website was also presented, which should have promoted the image of our country in the world but has instead become a classic example of waste of public funds. At its debut on the net, dozens of experts criticized the botched project, some even organized themselves to immediately make a better version of it. When the amount it cost was discovered, no-cost versions were offered. How much had it cost? In the end, seven million euros.

Italia.it has been back in operation for some years, managed by Enit, to promote tourism. Now Botticelli’s Venus stands out on the home page, in an influencer version with a bicycle in hand and the Colosseum in the background.

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Ten years later, the VeryBello portal was born! launched by the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Dario Franceschini, together with the Minister of Agricultural Policies, Maurizio Martina, and the Commissioner of Expo, Giuseppe Sala. Ambition: to gather all Italian cultural events in a single portal and «relaunch Italy’s image in the world». Born between teases and memes, it was then closed after just a year of life. The only note, let’s say “positive”: it cost us much less than its predecessor, just 35 thousand euros.

Another project by former minister Franceschini got off to a bad start and continues worse: It’sArt, the digital platform to promote culture. The so-called “Italian Netflix”, much criticized since its inception in the toughest period of the lockdown. The 2021 balance sheet of It’sArt, controlled by Cassa depositi e prestiti and the Chili platform, says that the company lost almost 7.5 million euros in the first year.

Even then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took the field to promote tourism. «Use your holidays to discover Italy, a unique country, made of sky, sun and sea, but also of history, culture and art»» recited the institutional commercial in 2011 to which it lent its voice.

Even if it was not born to promote our beautiful country, but to respond to an article in the Economist, the initiative of the then Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was also a lot of fun – better, laughing. The weekly portrayed him with an ice cream in hand, behind Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel, on a euro boat about to sink and with only Mario Draghi trying to keep it afloat.

The following morning, a loudspeaker and the red ribbons that marked off the press areas began to appear in the courtyard. And in the end the surprise, with Renzi getting off the CDM preceded by an ice cream cart, complete with a uniformed ice cream man. «I’m happy to offer you an ice cream, it’s real Italian ice cream, break the lines and come and taste it» was the invitation to the journalists and photographers crowded in the courtyard. And then off to the photos with a cream and lemon cone.