The Italian government is planning to suspend the sale of digital copies of masterpieces by artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci drawn from Italy’s major museums. This decision comes after a digital facsimile based on Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo (1505-06) was sold last year for €240,000 netting the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence €70,000, according to the museum.

According to a Uffizi Gallery Museum spokesperson, the work was minted by a company based in Milan, named Cinello as part of a five-year agreement. However, the terms of the contract were a matter of concern, particularly due to the fact that the amount of €100,000 was spent on “production costs”. The contract with the company states that “income due to the reproduction of the image is split in half between the company and the museum; the Cinello copy made about €140,000 [on the €240,000 sale], so the Uffizi received €70,000."

The issue has sparked concerns about whether major works are up “for sale”. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica asked in an article in May: “Who owns Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo? Who has the legal rights linked to the work? If the buyer ever decides to exhibit it, can he do it without the permission of the Uffizi? Basically, do we not risk losing control of our heritage in a time when we are increasingly moving towards the metaverse?”

The Art Newspaper was told by a spokesman for Massimo Osanna, the director general of museums in Italy, that “Given that the matter is complex and unregulated, the ministry has temporarily asked its institutions [museums and archaeological sites] to refrain from signing contracts relating to NFTs. The basic intention is to avoid unfair contracts.” The spokesperson added that directives for institutions in this field will be issued soon.

The Uffizi agreement signed is based on splitting net revenues 50/50.

The spokesperson states that “From the sale price is deducted: the VAT, the selling commission, the cost of the production of the frame and 20% of operating costs for Cinello. The partner museum is informed of all costs,” stressing that Cinello makes digitally-encrypted works (DAWs) rather than NFTs (non-fungible tokens), though an NFT token is created on the blockchain for some works.

He adds that the company does not hold exclusive rights with public museums, saying “All rights to the work remain with the museum that owns the original image. We create a new [image] linked to our patent, which is the DAW. The collector who buys the DAW cannot exhibit it in public exhibitions according to the contract; the work is only for private use. DAWs are created precisely to maintain control—which remains in the hands of Cinello and the partner museums—and not to disperse [Italian] heritage in the digital world.”

Purchasers can resell works on the Cinello platform; the museums concerned would subsequently receive royalties on any further sales.

The spokesperson says that “The Ministry [of Culture] has not blocked our existing contracts; it has blocked the possibility for museums to make new deals on digital images. We are very pleased that the ministry has issued guidelines for digital works. We hope that the legislation can also be quickly enacted to regulate this market."

Cinello is currently dealing with ten other Italian state museums on digital reproductions. One of the museums is Museo di Palazzo Pretorio and another is Pinacoteca di Brera di Milano.

Meanwhile, a blockchain expert called Gian Luca Comandini believes that when commissioning the works from Cinello, the Uffizi did not “work in the right way”. The expert hoped that the Italian Ministry of Culture "will soon be able to establish a working committee and introduce common regulations covering NFTs, the metaverse and web3 protocols [led by blockchain]."

The Uffizi spokesperson commented on the matter by saying that the museum did not sell anything but "granted the use of the image" and explained that selling digital artwork "is all down to Cinello," asserting that "It is false to say that the museum sold the Tondo copy.”

The partnership between the museum and Cinello lasted five years and ended in December last year, he added. Forty digital works were due to be produced under the contract.

The spokesperson added that during that time, the Milan-based company "had the right to make NFTs of the works that were part of the agreement; only the Tondo, however, was sold."

A statement by Uffizi said that “since the 1990s, the permits service of the Uffizi Galleries has authorised the use of dozens and dozens of images of works requested according to the legislation in force and always in a non-exclusive way; for many years [the museum has issued] digital images which are subject to the same [conditions] as those on paper or in other media”.