Cultural Heritage , Law and Communications

Amongst the general principles of the Italian Constitution, grounded as the foundation of human behaviour, article 9 establishes the commitment of the Italian Republic – intended as the organization of the State – to promote the development of culture, of scientific and technical research, as well as the safeguard of the environment and the National historic-artistic heritage as a factual testimony of our Country’s civilization and culture. This statement encompasses the freedom to perform artistic activities – both from a conceptual (freedom of thought) and from a production standpoint – as a constitutional right, and it also implies the protection, conservation and promotion of works of art, aimed at the advancement of culture. While carrying out the survey, which also highlighted a situation of severe abandonment of the National historic and artistic heritage, the Commission also acknowledged the essential homogeneity of the surveyed heritage, deeming it appropriate to classify them under the definition of “cultural heritage”. Declaration n. 1 states that “cultural heritage” is the definition of an asset constituting “a tangible testimony bearing the value of civilization”. The Franceschini Commission proposal of classifying the national cultural heritage in five groups is still substantially an effective one: 1) archaeological heritage; 2) artistic and historical heritage; 3) environmental heritage; 4) archival heritage; 5) book heritage. During the 1970s, there was a preference towards classifying cultural assets not only as single elements, but rather as a cluster of historic resources intertwined with one another across a specific context (for instance, the historic centers of old towns); there is also a trend to highlight the integration between cultural, nature-related aspects (hence the essential notion of “environmental heritage”); and finally to acknowledge as cultural heritage not only the “matter” but also the “activities” connected with it . In keeping on with the pursuit of analyzing the semantic evolution of “cultural heritage”, the Italian Law 112 of March 31, 1998, introduced an innovative point of view by simply eliminating the word “tangible” from the original text. A profound knowledge of our territory, from an environmental and historic-cultural perspective, is to be pursued as a fundamental and pivotal educational experience, which should by no means be disregarded by the national school system: our territory is there to be preserved and further discovered, taking hold of its natural and aesthetical substance. Its history commands to foster the irreplaceable richness both in Italy and abroad, thereby highlighting the need of communicating cultural assets as linked to the constitutional rights and their law principles.