The foreign ministry on Thursday launched a website to showcase Italian culture and language around the word and bring it to new audiences amid strong demand, the ministry said in a statement.
The 'Italiana' website is free to users and responds to a global demand for Italian culture and promotes music, literature, poetry, cinema, theatre, visual arts and web art, as well as architecture, design, history, archaeology, food and wine, according to the statement.
Italian cultural life has been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic but since the crisis began last year, the foreign ministry has allocated extra resources to support artists and cultural and creative industries internationally, the statement said.
The foreign ministry has promoted over 400 original works and hundreds of artists and professionals during the pandemic, the statement noted.
"This commitment is flanked by the initiatives (face-to-face and virtual) carried out by the 128 embassies and Permanent Representations, by the 81 Consulates and by the 82 Italian Cultural Institutes - which, together with the Italian schools abroad and the archaeological missions, make up the foreign ministry's 'extended cultural network' around the world," said the statement.
Italiana is "the beginning of a journey" to support Italian culture and creativity in the coming years, offer an international public new ways of enjoying it and to bring it to new people and countries, the statement concluded.
