After announcing plans in January for a historic shakeup of its museum sector, Italy’s Culture Ministry has appointed a number of foreign museum directors to prominent roles for the first time in the country’s history.

Among the 20 appointments, seven foreign directors have been given new roles with the hope of kicking Italy’s stuttering museums into gear. In addition 13 Italians have been appointed with four returning to the country after working in similar positions abroad.

The foreign directors are made up of Briton James Bradburne, who takes up the role of head of the Pinacoteca di Brera; German Eike Schmidt as director of the Uffizi; Frenchman Sylvain Bellenger to the Capodimonte in Naples; German Cecilie Hollberg to Florence’s Accademia Gallery; Austrian Peter Aufreiter as director at the National Gallery of Marche; Austrian Peter Assmann as director of Mantua’s Ducal Palace; and finally German Gabriel Zuchtriegel as director of the Paestum archaeology park in southern Italy.

Top museums such as Paris’ Louvre and London’s British Museum draw 8.5 million and five million visitors a year respectively. By contrast Italy’s prominent Uffizi Gallery in Florence welcomes just 1.5 million annually.

New directors will provide strategic leadership and management expertise for the selected museums. Each director will lead his or her respective administrative board and scientific committee.

Under the government’s previous system, Italy’s Culture Ministry managed the country’s museums and directors previously had little creative freedom or control. The new change in direction is designed to bring Italy’s top museums in line with the world’s top museums and galleries. The shakeup in policy also seeks to give directors a larger influence over annual budgets and allow easier methods of raising private income in the face of drastic funding cuts.

“We are turning a page,” said Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture and tourism minister. “With these appointments, Italy’s museums will make up for lost decades. It is a historic step for Italy and its museums that will establish the basis for a modernisation of our museum system.”