Archaeologists, art historians, architects, and academics have planned two days of staged protests in Rome, yesterday and today, against the recent cultural reforms enacted by Italy’s minister of cultural heritage Dario Franceschini and minister of public administration and simplification Marianna Madia, reports Il Giornale’s Tina Lepri.

As artforum.com previously reported, Franceschini’s reforms streamline the country’s cultural institutions, unifying the country’s independent departments into a single, new entity, Soprintendenze Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio (Department of Architecture, Fine Arts, and Landscape).

However the protesters predict these new reforms, further degrading the affected departments and their “guardianship,” create faults and chaos in “an already greatly weakened network of protection and research.” Under the slogan “Contro una riforma caos” (Against Reform Chaos), these professionals of arts and culture are uniting to denounce “measures that were forced upon [us] without any discussion or organic process,” as they said in a statement.

Today’s press conference, organized by the National Association of Technicians for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, among other groups, will be attended by well-known members of Italy’s cultural world, including Antonio Paolucci (director of the Vatican Museums), Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli (former director of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome), and Pietro Giovanni Guzzo (former archeological superintendent of Pompei).