From the Pantheon to Brunelleschi’s dome to Giò Ponti’s pathbreaking Pirelli Tower, Italy has one of the world’s proudest architectural heritages. But has this rich tradition inspired too many architects for one country to support? According to a new report from the Architects’ Council of Europe, there are 153,000 licensed architects in Italy — a huge sum representing 27 percent of all the architects on the Continent. That’s 50,000 more architects than there are in the United States, and more than the number in Britain and Germany combined.

“There are just too many of us, which makes for a very difficult working environment,” said Luciano Lazzari, an architect in Trieste who is also the president of the Architects’ Council of Europe. “I was in Brussels recently and people asked me why we have so many architects. I honestly don’t know why, apart from the tradition. It’s a profession that’s always been highly regarded in the past, and it still sounds good when you say it at parties, but in reality we are not well off.”