Cultural Heritage and Value Creation

Towards New Pathways 1st Edition

Gaetano M. Golinelli (Eds.)
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/cultural-heritage-and-value-creation-towards-new-pat
hways-1st-edition-gaetano-m-golinelli-eds/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Sustainable Value Creation 2nd Edition Chandler

https://textbookfull.com/product/sustainable-value-creation-2nd-
edition-chandler/

Integrated Reporting and Corporate Governance: Boards,

Long-Term Value Creation, and the New Accountability
1st Edition Laura Girella

https://textbookfull.com/product/integrated-reporting-and-
corporate-governance-boards-long-term-value-creation-and-the-new-
accountability-1st-edition-laura-girella/

Nanoscience and Cultural Heritage 1st Edition Philippe

Dillmann

https://textbookfull.com/product/nanoscience-and-cultural-
heritage-1st-edition-philippe-dillmann/

Artificial Intelligence in Value Creation Andrzej

Wodecki

https://textbookfull.com/product/artificial-intelligence-in-
value-creation-andrzej-wodecki/
Case Studies of Building Pathology in Cultural Heritage
1st Edition João M. P. Q. Delgado (Ed)

https://textbookfull.com/product/case-studies-of-building-
pathology-in-cultural-heritage-1st-edition-joao-m-p-q-delgado-ed/

Digital Heritage Progress in Cultural Heritage

Documentation Preservation and Protection 7th
International Conference EuroMed 2018 Nicosia Cyprus
October 29 November 3 2018 Proceedings Part II Marinos
Ioannides
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-heritage-progress-in-
cultural-heritage-documentation-preservation-and-protection-7th-
international-conference-euromed-2018-nicosia-cyprus-
october-29-november-3-2018-proceedings-part-ii-marinos/

Biotechnology and Conservation of Cultural Heritage 1st

Edition Franco Palla

https://textbookfull.com/product/biotechnology-and-conservation-
of-cultural-heritage-1st-edition-franco-palla/

Graphical Heritage Volume 2 Representation Analysis

Concept and Creation Luis Agustín-Hernández

https://textbookfull.com/product/graphical-heritage-
volume-2-representation-analysis-concept-and-creation-luis-
agustin-hernandez/

New Data Structures and Algorithms for Logic Synthesis

and Verification 1st Edition Luca Gaetano Amaru (Auth.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/new-data-structures-and-
algorithms-for-logic-synthesis-and-verification-1st-edition-luca-
gaetano-amaru-auth/
Gaetano M. Golinelli Editor

Cultural
Heritage and
Value Creation
Towards New Pathways
Cultural Heritage and Value Creation
Gaetano M. Golinelli
Editor

Cultural Heritage
and Value Creation
Towards New Pathways

13
Editor
Gaetano M. Golinelli
Department of Management
Sapienza, University of Rome
Rome
Italy

Translation with updates from the Italian language edition: “Patrimonio culturale e creazione di valore.
Verso nuovi percorsi”, Gaetano M. Golinelli (Ed.), © Cedam 2012. All rights reserved

ISBN 978-3-319-08526-5 ISBN 978-3-319-08527-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08527-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014947655

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or
information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts
in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of
being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright
Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained
from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance
Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of
publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for
any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Foreword

UNESCO welcomes with great interest the publication of this important scientific
contribution to the ongoing discussion about the role of heritage in contemporary
societies.
The diffusion of information on a global scale and the increase in tourism,
migrations and urbanisation processes have contributed to significant changes in
the notion of heritage and its management.
In the past few decades, the traditional concepts of heritage have been updated.
New perspectives have been offered regarding the “synthesis” of different approaches
to conservation that were previously defined and regulated in the last century.
One older approach that emerged in middle-class society during the French
Revolution focuses on the physical conservation of heritage as a basis for the
transmission of cultural values inherited from the past.
Another approach, based on cultural anthropology, views heritage as the
expression of a living society. This expression evolves with society and, if pro-
tected, cannot be “conserved” in a strict sense, thereby risking the loss of signifi-
cance and authenticity.
These two approaches are clearly reflected in UNESCO’s Conventions of
1972 (World Heritage Convention) and of 2003 (Intangible Cultural Heritage
Convention). Each approach, in its specific role, has defined itineraries and con-
cepts that have enabled an update of traditional models, including new heritage
categories, thereby responding to social demands and to new leanings in the pres-
ervation of cultural values, which this book clearly identifies and analyses.
However, the innovative synthesis of different cultural approaches to the con-
servation of heritage is fulfilled by identifying, developing, safeguarding and
enhancing the traditional concept of landscape.
The World Heritage Convention adopted the “cultural landscape” category in
1992, defining a heritage system in which “tangible” and “intangible” values are
strictly linked and require more innovative interpretative modalities and manage-
ment models than the “classic” ones.

v
vi Foreword

The Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which

emphasises heritage’s link to tradition and traditional know-how, identifies land-
scape through the application of cultural and social practices, spaces of common
ritual and places of identity.
Because of the relevance of these approaches, UNESCO decided to use the
approaches to reconsider the principle of the conservation of historic cities, includ-
ing the preparation of a new recommendation for the “urban historic landscape”
that was presented at the 36th General Conference held in the autumn of 2011.
This recommendation, the first to directly concern historic cities, identifies within
the concept of urban landscape a complex set of values that extends beyond the
traditional concept of the “historic district”, defining the city as a complex interac-
tion of both cultural and natural and tangible and intangible dimensions.
This approach, which links sustainable development and adaptation to climate
change principles, enables a continuous revitalisation of cultural values in a soci-
ety through an ongoing process of transformation, thereby adequately meeting and
processing a society’s emerging needs.
Through a reconsideration of traditional concepts and an openness to new per-
spectives on heritage, the essays included in this book offer an innovative contri-
bution to the international works in progress concerning this theme.

Rome, Italy, May 2014 Francesco Bandarin

Preface

What do we mean today by “cultural heritage”? Is the classical definition of

“culture” relating to a purely material dimension still relevant, legitimising the
protection of “cultural heritage” as opposed to protection and enhancement? Is
it perhaps time to reconsider the scope of this concept in a new way based on a
­systems approach?
In addressing these questions, the authors of this volume begin with the follow-
ing observation: at the specific international level of UNESCO—to which the United
Nations assigned in 1947 the responsibility of protecting and promoting culture and
which Italy observes with interest—our questions already have a clear answer.
“Cultural heritage” in the UNESCO system has always been perceived, evalu-
ated and promoted as an integral part of a specific social and economic fabric, the
identity of a defined community. In other words, as the following essays will high-
light, UNESCO’s conventions and programmes have developed, perhaps uncon-
sciously, what we describe as a “viable systems approach” to “cultural heritage”.
Using this approach, business scholars focused on business organisations have
become interested in cultural heritage.
These scholars could reconsider the concept of culture and its evolution over
time. They were impressed by the process of the democratisation of culture, which
began in the mid-eighteenth century with Voltaire’s work, “Essai sur les moeurs et
l’esprit de nationes” (1756), which moves the idea of culture away from its clas-
sical tradition of elitist universality and extends the idea to the social aspects of
everyday life and a contextualisation in time and space.
The determinants of these developments are primarily related to the following
changes:
(1) the major social and economic changes of the second half of the past century;
(2) the redefinition of the role of the individual in multiple contexts and in the
processes involving him;
(3) perhaps most notably, the change of perspective when examining any type of
problem or phenomenon.

vii
viii Preface

The third point refers to the emergence of a systems approach that shifts the focus
from parts to the whole, thereby extending the traditional analytical-reductionist
approach.
The systems approach, if applied in the fertile field of studies on business
organisations and financial systems, is of major significance concerning the issues
related to cultural heritage.
This approach helps to overcome the excessively reductionist original vision of
culture, which focused on individual objects or items of significant value, shifting
attention instead to the complex relationships and interactions among components.
The first chapters of the book are particularly dedicated to these themes. The
essays of Montella, Barile and Saviano develop a new theory regarding the rep-
resentation of “cultural heritage” based on a perspective related to the viable sys-
tems approach.
Providing new lenses to analyse cultural processes, the authors find scientific
basis for the line of reasoning developed in the second part of the book, which
is dedicated specifically to the conventions and programmes implemented by
UNESCO to enhance the particular cultural heritage linked to the rural and agri-
cultural world.
In the following chapters, the essays of Scovazzi, Petrillo, Di Bella and Di Palo
analyse the way in which two UNESCO conventions—the first addressing mate-
rial cultural heritage in 1972 and the second examining intangible cultural heritage
in 2003—became the primary tools for enhancing cultural heritage or cultural ele-
ments in a living space and for affirming, at the national level, the need to intro-
duce new rules that safeguard and promote cultural heritage.
From this point of view, the study on cultural landscapes by Petrillo, Di Bella
and Di Palo is emblematic.
Historically, landscape has been viewed as the most comprehensive and com-
plete expression of cultural heritage, contextualised at geographical and historical
levels. However, the new proposed concept of culture creates interesting economic
and social reflections at a more general level.
First, the field has been considerably extended because of new attention to the
“whole”. A combination of components, relationships and interactions has been
added to the outstanding natural wonders and monuments, towards a landscape
viewed as the historical sediment, layout and material evidence of civilisations in a
constant flux.
Second, the process of fruition has changed, with an increasing degree of
involvement by the user.
Furthermore, landscape has become qualified as a production factor or a driver
of competitive advantage for products “made in” or distinguished by specific geo-
graphical contexts.
As a result, the value of cultural heritage tends to be viewed as a use value in
relation to its possible contribution to the elevation of the share capital of the con-
text and the well-being of humanity.
This approach solves the dilemma between protection and enhancement
because it is the enhancement that makes heritage deserving of protection.
Preface ix

Finally, a “landscape system” changes over time. As the components of its

structure change, the purposes of the system may also vary. This dynamic can
occur through a process of continual adjustments or through more incisive and
radical transformations.
Rural landscapes usually exhibit the first type of change. The adaptations of
techniques and practices shared by the community occur in a gradual manner, in
an environment of harmony.
At other times, however, the landscape can be radically transformed from a
top-down act of government, instead of a bottom-up process. In these examples,
we observe virtuous dynamics, as in the case of the Pontine marshes in southern
Lazio, the subject of depth reclamation and deforestation. The result was a com-
pletely different landscape in which the use-value for local communities undoubt-
edly increased.
However, in numerous other cases, these incisive transformations resulting
from focused governance were not virtuous, including the case of the “Vele”, pop-
ular districts built in Scampia in Naples.
In UNESCO’s area of interest, these issues had been “felt” for a long time, unlike
the situation that occurs at the national level when widespread enmity remains
towards the “reception” of cultural values regarding agricultural traditions that
deeply shape Italian landscape (as shown in the essay of Scepi and Petrillo on the
specific cases concerning the enhancement of Italian rural and agri-food aspects).
At a recent UNESCO conference in Paris dedicated to landscape, I highlighted
the ways in which the evolving governance of landscape, at all levels, remains a
crucial issue for the future.
Reconsidering the traditional meanings of the concept of culture, as Montella
invites us to do in his opening essay, based on a viable systems perspective and on the
rational schemes developed by Barile and Saviano, may be an answer to this problem.
The application of the so-called “value in use” to “cultural heritage”, correctly
interpreted as based on knowledge and respect for the past, would help to over-
come the conflict between environmental protection and enhancement and could
be a significant element of reflection regarding the identification of development
paths aimed at guaranteeing the sustainability and viability of landscape systems.
Finally, we must pause for a moment and look over the hedges in our own gar-
dens to consider what happens at the international level, to understand the reasons
and then to act accordingly.
The ultimate goal of this book is just that: to provide a key for understanding
cultural phenomena to those who govern these processes, with the belief that the
“UNESCO system” can provide causes for reflection of great importance.

Rome, Italy, May 2014 Gaetano M. Golinelli

Contents

Cultural Value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Massimo Montella

Towards a Novel Conception of Bene Culturale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Sergio Barile

From the Management of Cultural Heritage to the Governance

of the Cultural Heritage System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Sergio Barile and Marialuisa Saviano

Intangible Cultural Heritage as Defined in the 2003

UNESCO Convention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Tullio Scovazzi

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention and the Enhancement

of Rural Vine-Growing Landscapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Pier Luigi Petrillo, Ottavio Di Bella and Nicola Di Palo

The Cultural Dimension of the Mediterranean Diet as an Intangible

Cultural Heritage of Humanity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Giovanni Scepi and Pier Luigi Petrillo

xi
Cultural Value

Massimo Montella

Abstract Economic studies on the enhancement of cultural heritage usually suffer

because of the misunderstanding of basic cultural notions, which subsequently com-
promises product policies. In particular, the notion of culture is interpreted accord-
ing to an idealistic vision rather than a richer, updated anthropological meaning.
Consequently, cultural value is reduced to an aesthetic dimension, viewed merely for
entertainment and not for increasing human capital through the knowledge of his-
tory. The notion of landscape is also interpreted as an aesthetic notion and not as a
palimpsest of past civilisations. The mission of the enhancement of cultural heritage
is not usually appreciated as a merit good. Moreover, many professionals from the
humanistic milieu commit the same mistakes, because their education is anchored
in the idealistic tradition rather than to the statute of historical sciences as modified
in the second half of the twentieth century according to the new social, economic,
political and cultural context. These obstacles, combined with the lack of an inter-
disciplinary approach, produce a restricted vision of both the assets and the potential
offer and the latent and current demand. To overcome such difficulties, this chapter
aims to clarify the meaning of “historical cultural value” as historically determined
and of additional notions including culture, cultural heritage, landscape, enhance-
ment, and museum. In addition, particular attention is paid to the historical cultural
value of food with respect to the need for authenticity in historical documents.

Keywords Culture · Cultural heritage · Landscape · Enhancement · Food

1 The Postmodern Context

(Mass industrial democracy: from land to environment to landscape, cultural

innovation and backlash in the humanities)

M. Montella (*)
University of Macerata, Via Brunforte 13, 63900 Fermo, Italy
e-mail: massimo.montella@unimc.it

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 1

G.M. Golinelli (ed.), Cultural Heritage and Value Creation,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08527-2_1
2 M. Montella

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the systems approach1 for interpreting phenomena,
including social and economic ones, replaced the mechanical paradigm of the mod-
ern era. This approach was applied to all fields, leading to a profound change in
ideas2 that had been a long time in the making.3 The rediscovery of the value of land
played a central role in this process. Land had been formerly seen only for its eco-
nomic potential, in which physical and geographical space was valued essentially on
the location of productive activities focused on basic needs; then the concept evolved
into an ecological vision of the environment as a biosphere and as an ecosystem crit-
ical to people’s health. Finally, this concept became recognised as landscape, that is,
an anthropical system and palimpsest of past civilisations—and therefore of great
humanistic value and crucial for spiritual and material well-being.4
Attention to the natural and historical milieu5 then becomes inevitable in every
respect. Among the current key indicators of this phenomenon are the new areas of
study dedicated to environmental economics,6 the paradigm of sustainable devel-
opment,7 stakeholder theory8 and corporate social responsibility.9

1 Cf. Emery 1974.

2 Among other things and with particular emphasis on business administration cf. Golinelli
2000, 2005 in particular Barile 2006, 2009.
3 For a long time the systems paradigm, and before that ecology, had begun to influence various fields.
4 Cf. also Golinelli 2003.
5 “Il concetto di « milieu » (Dansero 1996, 1998) […] consente di legare alcune caratteristiche

dell’ecosistema al «sistema di usi in cui sono coinvolte » nell’ambito dello sviluppo locale”
[“The concept of « milieu » (Dansero 1996, 1998)[…] allows you to tie some of the characteris-
tics of the ecosystem to the « system of uses in which they are involved » in the sphere of local
development”] Iraldo 2002, p. 77.
6 This area of study included, among many others, Ronald Harry Coase, James McGill

Buchanan and William Craig Stubblebine, Kenneth Ewert Boulding, Robert Underwood Ayres
and Allen Victor Kneese as well as other participants, and was previously seen in the 1950 study
by Karl William Kapp entitled the Social Cost of Private Enterprise.
7 The expression “sustainable development” appears in the report written in 1987 on behalf of the

United Nations by Gro Harlem Brundtland, president of the World Commission on Environment
and Development. In 1972 in Stockholm, the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment had already called on states to “plan development in a manner consistent with the
need to protect and improve the quality of life for the benefit of the people.” Even in earlier dec-
ades, but particularly in the 1970s, many denounced the limits of development, demanding non-
monetary parameters for measuring well-being (Bauer 1966); estimating a net domestic product,
including natural and cultural resources that are not traded on the market; emphasising fairness
between generations (Meadows et al. 1972); challenging the correlation between economic well-
being and happiness (Easterlin 1974); and speaking about the joyless economy (Scitowsky 1976).
8 Cf. Freeman 1984.
9 Cf. Stated by Zappa 1927 since the 1920s and constantly reverted to and clarified by the schol-

ars of business administration and in particular by Bowen in 1953 (Bowen 1953), this paradigm
gradually evolved in terms of both studies and public policies (cf. Libro Verde dell’UNIONE
EUROPEA 2001) [cf. European Union Green Paper of 2001, Promoting a European Framework
for Corporate Social Responsibility], until now considered as the tenet of the political economy,
business economics, and politics and even as a potential ‘third way’ to heal the failure of the wild
capitalist model with Marxist utopia” (cf. Hinna 2005, p. XVI.; Sciarelli 1996, 1998, 1999, 2002,
2003, 2005a, b, 1998; Caselli 1998; Gallino 2001; Coda 2005).
Cultural Value 3

The origin of this conceptual revolution was the advent of mass democracy and
the rapid and considerable economic and technological development after the
Second World War. This development was accompanied by a more balanced distri-
bution of wealth, higher average levels of education, increased leisure and enormous
media development.10 Thus, the needs related to primary consumption were signifi-
cantly expanded and better satisfied, and these needs were gradually overtaken by
an ever-increasing demand for services, intangible assets and quality of life.
This new situation also involved the emergence of an anthropological notion of
culture (see par. 1.2), marking a contrast with previous idealistic visions. Within
this shift, the novel concept of bene culturale takes shape (see par. 1.3). As a
result, a large segment of the humanities system11 interprets the need for innova-
tion12 in accordance with the distinctive values of the new proprietary suprasys-
tem, which unlike a few years ago13 now includes the entire society.14
However, the archetypes that had been dominant until that time15 were not dis-
solved. Particularly in recent decades, the idealistic aesthetics for many people
have regained significant strength. “Una rappresentazione prosopopeica, monu-
mentale e selettiva, delle cose d’interesse artistico e storico” (a prosopopeia, mon-
umental and selective representation of items of artistic and historical interest)
began again, and the language used to describe these items tilted towards “volen-
tieri alla metafora: lontano da ogni accezione pragmatica, da qualunque interesse
per la lettura tecnica dei rapporti spaziali e temporali riferiti dagli oggetti d’arte
come dal paesaggio intero” (welcoming the metaphor: far from any pragmatic
sense, from any interest in the technical reading of spatial and temporal relation-
ships expressed by the works of art and by the landscape as a whole), the concept
of bene culturale is often incorrectly linked to “esemplarità squisitamente muse-
ali” (purely museum forms).16

10 Cf. Marshall McLuhan 1964.

11 As a system that is organised, at least partially open, contextualised and homeostatic.
12 “In sostanza, è come se gli strumenti della nuova civiltà che auspichiamo non bastino […]

e quelli della civiltà che ci ha preceduti appaiono inservibili se non addirittura devianti” [in
essence, it is as if the tools of the new hoped for civilization are not enough […] and those of the
civilizations that preceded us seem useless if not deviant”]. Emiliani 1974b, p. 11.
13 Cf. note 125.
14 Cf. Golinelli 2000; Barile 2000, 2009; Barile et al. 2002; Golinelli and Barile 2006.
15 Not all systemic entities, or at least not all of their components, evolve equally and linearly in

tune with the expectations of the changed context. Some pre-existing ones or parts of them main-
tain inertial behaviours or even actively resist. In addition, the weak function exercisable by the
owners of the social suprasystem has management and control tools which are not only exposed
to information asymmetries but also are unsuitable in the short term to cope with the mechanism
of co-optation which management relies on for survival. This occurs because the suprasystem
is widely diffused and, above all, is external to the operating organizations (Cf. Golinelli 2000,
2005). There is a greater possibility of divergence when there is no possibility to build from
scratch, but instead when restructuring institutionalized entities that are rooted in ancient com-
munity preferences, which in the eyes of the suprasystem owner do not immediately appear to be
of primary interest.
16 All of these citations are from Toscano 2000.
4 M. Montella

Finally, the path of this historical moment, with its numerous and often divergent
components, can only be seen from the outside and is therefore of interest to future
observers. In the meantime, the problem is not the right to different values but rather
the pernicious babble that results in the erroneous use of the expression bene cul-
turale as if it were not bound to a specific meaning. In fact, this expression is now
historicised, well-defined and broadly justified (see par. 1.3) by the Commissione
Franceschini17 and later by numerous scholars.18 Although lack of interest in these
guidelines may be legitimate, there must be an expression of interest in different
themes to avoid terminological confusion that nullifies any theoretical and technical
commitment. Italian legislation is also guilty of the above error for several reasons of
differing importance, but also because it is so conditioned by the bureaucratic appa-
ratus. Business studies also assume that the operating structure in any organisation
poses the most significant obstacle to innovation; the fear of losing what one has,
although it might not be very important or might be steadily decreasing, impedes a
vision of improvements from change. At the heart the new terminology bene cul-
turale “doveva riflettere un modo nuovo di concepire la politica di tutela dei beni
culturali […], per cui il regime giuridico si sarebbe imperniato sul valore culturale
che non è rappresentato dall’oggetto materiale nella sua estrinsecazione fisica, bensì
dalla funzione sociale del bene, visto come fattore di sviluppo intellettuale della
collettività e come elemento storico attorno a cui si definisce l’identità delle collettiv-
ità locali” (should reflect a new way of conceiving the policy of protection of cultural
heritage […], so that the legal system would be centred on the cultural value that is
not represented by a material object in its physical manifestation, but as its social
function, viewed as a factor in the intellectual development of the community and as
a historical element around which the identity of local communities is defined).19
Consequently, in line with the new democratic context, there shoud have been a
“passaggio da un’attività di tutela statica del bene ad un intervento diretto a gar-
antire alla collettività una fruizione ampia ed effettiva del valore culturale custo-
dito nel bene” (switch from the static protection of property to direct intervention
to ensure broad and effective use of the cultural value embedded in a heritage to
the community),20 giving the highest priority to “attività di valorizzazione e di
gestione” (enhancement and management activities). At the same time the essen-
tial recognition of this cultural value as place-specific would be closely integrated
with regulations governing land use, precisely as suggested by distinguished
jurists such as Enrico Spagna Musso and Alberto Predieri.21 Adopting this
approach would provide newly formed regions with relevant authority in this sec-
tor, thus questioning the exclusive power of the central government.

17 Nevertheless, the committee’s final product is not free from internal contradictions, primarily
because of the diverse and strong personalities who participated.
18 In particular, Andrea Emiliani, Bruno Toscano, Riccardo Francovich, and Andrea Carandini.
19 Pitruzzella 2000.
20 Ibidem; Rullani 2004b.
21 Cf. Spagna Musso 1961; Predieri 1969.
Cultural Value 5

Because a radical overhaul of the law22 undoubtedly poses difficulties, all legis-
lation since the enunciation of bene culturale has been negatively affected by
“Sedara syndrome”23: it is good that everything changes so that it remains as
before. In fact, to save appearances, the legislative acts recognise only the name of
the new conceptual category.
As a result, in 1999, “un articolo aggiunto in extremis al corpo del Testo Unico24
[…] rende omaggio alla definizione unitaria di « bene culturale » inteso quale « tes-
timonianza avente valore di civiltà » . Ma la formula non ha un’immediata efficacia
operativa” (an article added in extremis to the Testo Unico 24 […] pays homage to
the comprensive definition of « bene culturale » understood as ‘evidence of the
nature of civilisations’.25 Nevertheless, the formula has no immediate operational
effectiveness) because, considering further clauses: “siamo in presenza di una spe-
cie di « norma di chiusura » del sistema di individuazione dei beni culturali, che da
una parte conferma come le singole specie di beni culturali devono essere espressa-
mente individuate da una norma di legge, dall’altro lato consacra, ove ce ne fosse
ancora bisogno, il definitivo tramonto della concezione estetizzante dei beni cultur-
ali a favore di una più ampia visione degli stessi e delle politiche pubbliche che li
riguardano” (we are witnessing a sort of ‘regulatory restriction’ of the system iden-
tifying cultural property. On one hand, this system confirms that the individual
types of cultural goods must be specifically identified by a rule of law, whereas on
the other hand it establishes, if proof were still needed, the final decline of the aes-
thetic concept of bene culturale in favor of a broader vision and of public policies
that affect them).26 In addition, until now27 legal texts had continued to include
bene culturale, understood as “testimonianza avente carattere di civiltà” (evidence
of the nature of civilisation); however, in time, by virtue of successive articles,
“diventa bene culturale in senso giuridico solo se tale è considerabile sulla base di
una qualificazione, ossia di una fissazione di fattispecie operata dal legislatore. Il
che è come dire che il bene culturale è creato dal legislatore” (becoming cultural
property only if in a legal sense it qualifies, or if defined by the legislature. That is
to say, the object is created by the legislature).28 This suggests a “non-definition” of
bene culturale because “in luogo di definire il bene culturale per poi identificare
come « materia » le norme che lo riguardano, si muove da queste ultime, ed anzi
(più precisamente) dalle norme riguardanti la tutela, e da queste si ricava la perime-
trazione della materia beni culturali” (instead of defining bene culturale and later

22 Among other things, a definition of positive right that actually conforms to the notion of bene

culturale would lead to an extension of protection, making specific legislation no longer suitable.
23 Don Calogero Sedara is a character in the novel Il Gattopardo by Giuseppe Tomasi di

Lampedusa. Cf. De Giorni Cezzi 2001.

24 D.lgs. (Italian Law) 490/1999.
25 Pitruzzella 2000. This, in fact, as discussed in par. 1.3, is the uniform and broad definition for-

mulated by the Commissione Franceschini.

26 Ibidem
27 Cf. D.lgs. (Italian Law) 112/1998; D.lgs. 42/2004.
28 Barbati et al. 2003, p. 27. The authors refer in this regard to Cerulli Irelli 1988, p. 141.
6 M. Montella

defining the rules that concern the term as ‘material’, it moves from these rules, and
even, more precisely, from those concerning protection; and from these rules we
reach the outer boundaries of beni culturali).29
Thus, existing provisions do not promote a policy for bene culturale that is pur-
suant to the objectives of preservation and enhancement corresponding to the true
meaning of bene culturale. The provisions cannot, however, impede this policy.
Even so, the regional power, that is essential for these purposes, remains unused,
beginning with urban areas, other events attest to incremental progress that is by
no means negligible, such as the European Landscape Convention30 and several
ICOM (Internationa Council of Museums) and UNESCO (United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declarations (see Chap. 5).

2 The Notion of Culture

(From mechanical to system, from exceptional to ordinary, from spiritual to mate-

rial, from emotion to intelligence)
Since the mid-eighteenth century31 there have been many departures from the
classical tradition of the individual cultura animi,32 instead emphasising the social
dimension and concepts of civilisation and the civilisation process.33 Nevertheless,
even in the 1950s and 1960s, the idealistic assumption dominated, particularly in
the Western world. Even during the Age of Enlightenment and the modern anthro-
pological period of the nineteenth century the vision remained of an aristocratic
humanitas that was nobly freed from primary needs and localist social obligations,
devoted to cultivating the disinterested universal values of the spirit. In this vision,
the sphere of value is limited to higher intellectual manifestations. At the peak lies
the aesthetic, which for Benedetto Croce coincides with gnosis.34 The religion of
beauty is therefore triumphant, “la bellezza salverà il mondo” (beauty will save the
world)35 and with it the religion of art, art as “intuizione lirica“ (lyrical intuition).36

29 Cammelli 2002. “Il Testo Unico ha dovuto abbandonare […] la definizione di diritto positivo

(quella appunto offerta dal d.lg. 112/1998) di bene culturale più aggiornata e condivisa, optando
per la vecchia « coseità » .” [“The—“Testo Unico” (i.e. the law that combines all the earlier laws)
had to abandon […] the definition of positive right (offered by legislative decree 112/1998) of the
most up to date and shared bene culturale, by opting for the old « thingness » .”].
30 [European Landscape Convention], Firenze 20 October 2000.
31 Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations by Voltaire was published in 1756.
32 Where cultura is read as colere [Latin: to cultivate] in its proper etymological sense or to cul-

tivate the person to rise to the ideal of universal humanity. Rossi 1970, 1975.
33 Cf. Starobinski 1990, pp. 5–48.
34 Cf. Croce 1902, 1912, 1920.
35 As reported by the fictional character Prince Miškin in The Idiot by Dostoevskij.
36 “Concetto di « arte » […] astratto, come quello di bellezza, […] poiché l’arte esiste negli

occhi di colui che la osserva” (Abstract concept of art like the concept of beauty, as art exists in
the eyes of the beholder). Frey and Pommerehne 1991, p. 28.
Cultural Value 7

Consequently, things of the past that are judged worthy of consideration and
protection are those, as referred to in Italian law from 1902 to 1939, that have rare
or exceptional formal merit or imposing impression37 and are identified and hier-
archically selected according to the ‘canon of excellence’, applying a hoarding cri-
terion. The value of each object is contained completely in itself and of itself. In
the wide range of meanings related to the natural and broadly speaking economic
function the utilitarian nature of artistic products gives way to the myth of pure art.
Nearly all of the artifacts, traditions, values and attitudes developed by the masses
appear to be of no interest. This idealistic pretention of the classic humanistic
mould of a universal elite is opposed in the new democratic context by a concept
of global, systemic and functional concept of culture, particularly elaborated in the
social sciences.38 In fact, in updating a line of thought that extends, citing only the
most important, goes from Voltaire to Tylor,39 passing through Herder40 and his
thesis that is antithetical to those of Kant and of Hegel, the notion of culture
assumes extensive anthropological significance as well as historical and geograph-
ical context, referring to the wealth of a community, not least when applied to the
populace, and is happily considered as ‘material’.41 This notion therefore links
with the paradigm of complexity42 and without the previous risk of ethnocentrism,
approximately aligns with the concept of civilisation. In fact, the notion of culture
concerns the supply of material and intangible resources, including symbols and
values, by which a community and individuals respond to tangible and intangible
needs and desires that they experience in a particular time and place. The

37 For their “capacità di essere cosa pregevole e memoria, singola entità artistica e celebrazione

didascalica” [potential to be something valuable and memorable, a single artistic entity and
didactic celebration]. Emiliani 1974b, p. 33.
38 We are witnessing a “general rejection of the aristocratic dimensions of culture, of aestheti-

cism, of the hierarchies of value in art, of antiquarianism, of intellectualism, of the doctrines of

the sublime and all the « romantic claims that had erected the myth of pure art and theorized
about the estrangement of art from the concrete context of life » (Bologna 1972, p. 208). […]
Irony is made about the « autonomy of form » and certain other « inventions » of art historians,
such as « flagrances » and « presentness » by Cesare Brandi. It is stated that « the cult of the ‘bel
paese’ for beauty, for which everything is subsumed under the category of art, reveals our back-
wardness more than our originality » (Carandini 1979, p. 10)”. Montella 1987, pp. 13–14.
39 “La cultura, o civiltà, intesa nel suo ampio senso etnografico, è quell’insieme complesso che

include la conoscenza, le credenze, l’arte, la morale, il diritto, il costume e qualsiasi altra capac-
ità e abitudine acquisita dall’uomo come membro di una società” [Culture, or civilization, under-
stood in its wide ethnographic sense is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of
society”], Tylor 1871 (tr. it. Rossi 1970, p. 7).
40 “Even the peoples of California and Tierra del Fuego have learned to make and use bows and

arrows, have language and concepts, exercises and arts that they learned as we’ve learned, so
they too are truly enlightened and inculturated, although both only slightly”, Herder 1791 (tr. it.
Verra 1971, p. 34).
41 Cf. Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952 (tr. it Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1972); Emiliani 1974b; Altan

1983; Bronzini 1985; Cirese 1986; Tucci 2002.

42 Cf. Turco 1988; Taylor 2005.
8 M. Montella

perception of needs and desires is itself intended to be conditioned by the system

of values and knowledge. The fundamental determinant of such a radical reversal,
which is also ideological, depends on the partial but sufficient mutation of the api-
cal suprasystem. Where necessary, this is clearly spelled out by many scolars of
the time, in particular by Carlo Ginzburg, who wrote in 1976 that “l’uso del ter-
mine « cultura » per definire il complesso di atteggiamenti, credenze, codici di
comportamento e così via, propri delle classi subalterne in un dato periodo storico,
è relativamente tardivo, e mutuato dall’antropologia culturale. Solo attraverso il
concetto di « cultura primitiva » si è arrivati infatti a riconoscere il possesso di una
cultura a quelli che una volta venivano definiti paternalisticamente « volghi dei
popoli civilizzati ». La cattiva coscienza del colonialismo si è saldata così con la
cattiva coscienza dell’oppressione di classe (the use of the term ‘culture’ to define
the system of attitudes, beliefs, codes of conduct and so on, typical of the lower
classes in a given historical period, is relatively recent and borrowed from cultural
anthropology. Only through the concept of ‘primitive culture’, in fact, have we
come to recognise that those who were once defined paternalistically as ‘the plebs
of civilised peoples’ also have a culture. The bad conscience of colonialism has
been welded to the bad conscience of class oppression).43 Thus, “« Chi costruì
Tebe dalle sette porte? » chiedeva già il « lettore operaio » di Brecht. Le fonti non
ci dicono niente di quegli anonimi muratori: ma la domanda conserva tutto il suo
peso“ (‘Who built Thebes of the seven gates?’ is a question that is already posed
by Brecht’s ‘working-class reader’. Although sources provide little information
about these anonymous builders, the question still has merit).44
The historical sciences, when prodded by this question,45 then revise the statute
of their discipline,46 beginning in the wake of the Annales to address social history,
urban history, the relationship between anthropology and history, and the material
culture of the environment. Historians preferred sources of information which are
unintentional, thus more true, and which are material, thus more difficult to alter.
Historians also prefer sources such as ordinary objects that reveal the normal living
conditions of ordinary people. However, extraordinary objects that represent the
subjective vision of their patrons are considered with diffidence by historians. Even
written sources are considered doubtful because the ability to write has for centu-
ries been the prerogative of the ruling classes. Hence, archeology, from Bianchi
Bandinelli and Fernand Braudel, no longer seek to represent the history of ancient
art, but rather the history of cultures, even an experimental historical science,
switching from the “caccia al tesoro all’anatomia del territorio” (treasure hunt to
the anatomy of the territory), to give “vita a un movimento culturale che sviluppi la

43 Ginzburg 1976, p. 3.
44 Ibidem
45 As already observed regarding the evolutionary dynamics of systemic entities, which are not

necessarily unitary or uniform, not all components of the humanist cultural system fit into this
new framework.
46 The structural modification of the traditional epistemological framework of historical and

social sciences reflects the will/need to adapt to the new context.

Cultural Value 9

ricerca storica come scienza anche sperimentale e diffonda la cultura materiale

dell’ambiente, della città e dei prodotti a livello di massa” (life to a cultural move-
ment that develops also historical research as an experimental science and pro-
motes the material culture of the environment, of cities and of products for the
masses).47 The history of art, acknowledging the lessons of Lucien Febvre, wishes
to be “histoire à part entière”48 (an entire history), and many art historians begin to
address “geografia artistica” (artistic geography),49 renewing the late eighteenth
century lessons of Luigi Lanzi. Historians, “che in passato si potevano accusare
[…] di voler conoscere soltanto le « gesta dei re » […], sempre più si volgono
verso ciò che i loro predecessori avevano taciuto, scartato o semplicemente igno-
rato” (who could be blamed in the past […] wanting to only know the ‘deeds of the
king’ […], increasingly turn to what their predecessors had been silent about, dis-
carded or simply ignored).50 Geography, as used particularly by Sereni51 and
Gambi,52 addresses human geography, taking history into account. In short, the
need for a broad socialisation and democratisation of culture, in contrast to what
Riccardo Francovich called the “umanesimo della fettunta” (humanism of fet-
tunta—simple toasted bread with oil and garlic), makes it “abbatta sulle spiagge
umanistiche” (break down on the beaches of the humanities), an anthropological
“ondata di piena” (full wave).53 In the editorial of the first issue of “Archeologia
Medievale. Cultura materiale, insediamenti, territorio”54 for example, the need for
the “recupero sistematico di testimonianze materiali […] riferibili alle trasformazi-
oni dei modi e rapporti di produzione” (systematic recovery of material evidence
[…] related to the transformation of the modes and relationships of production) is
stated to “contribuire a superare, anche in Italia, la separazione fra vita materiale,
quotidiana e storia” (helping to overcome, even in Italy, the separation of material,
everyday and historical life). This line of thought therefore uses as a “base di
partenza la più ampia definizione di « cultura materiale », […] dove sia cultura sia
materiale hanno senso solo se riferiti alla più moderna e comprensiva antropologia
storica, contro ogni tentazione di determinismo etnico, geografico, economico o
idealistico” (starting point the broader definition of ‘material culture’, […] where
both material and culture make sense only when referring to the most modern and
comprehensive historical anthropology and against any temptation regarding eth-
nic, geographical, economic or idealistic determinism). Hence, the strong interest

47 Carandini 1979, pp. 9–10.

48 Cf. Febvre 1971.
49 Cf. Toscano 1990.
50 Ginzburg 1976, p. XI.
51 Cf. Sereni 1961.
52 Cf. Gambi 1972.
53 Carandini 2008, p. 70.
54 From 1974. The Management Committee was composed of Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Riccardo

Francovich (Chair), Sauro Gelichi, and Tiziano Mannoni. The Scientific Committee included
Graziella Berti, Lanfredo Castelletti, Rinaldo Comba, Paolo Delogu, Richard Hodges, Daniele
Manacorda, Ghislaine Noyé, Paolo Peduto, Carlo Varaldo, and Chris Wickham.
10 M. Montella

in recognising “alcuni fenomeni che investono la base materiale delle società

pre-industriali, quali la storia dell’insediamento, la storia dei rapporti tecnico-
economici con le risorse ambientali e quindi la storia del paesaggio e del territorio”
(some phenomena connected to the material basis of pre-industrial societies, such
as the history of the settlement, the history of technical and economic relationships
with environmental resources and thus the history of the landscape and the land).
The editorials also noted: “È pensando a questi temi, che abbiamo voluto che figu-
rassero nel sottotitolo anche le parole Insediamento e Territorio, che sintetizzano
una serie di temi finora trascurati” (Thinking about these issues made us want to
include the words Settlement and Land in the subtitle, which summarises a number
of issues that had been hitherto neglected). Lukàcs, moreover, had suggested that
production material “implica in sé e forma da sé i rapporti degli uomini fra loro e
con la natura, nonché i rapporti di ogni uomo con se stesso” (implies in itself and
forms by itself the relationships of people with each other and with nature, as well
as each individual’s relationship with himself).55

3 Concept of Bene Culturale

(From universal to specific place and time, from aesthetic to historic, from beauti-
ful to true, from contrast to the meeting of the history of culture and the history of
economics, from identification to the distinction of art and culture)
Inherent in this acceptance of culture in an anthropological sense, historically and
territorially contextualised, is the hitherto unidentified notion of bene culturale.56
This term had already appeared in the Convention for the Protection of Cultural
Property in the Event of Armed Conflict that was signed at The Hague in 1954.
However, between 1964 and 1967 the term was properly justified with a precise
definition: “ogni testimonianza materiale avente valore di civiltà” (any material evi-
dence with value to civilisation) by the Commissione parlamentare per la tutela e la
valorizzazione del patrimonio storico, archeologico, artistico e del paesaggio
(Parliamentary Commission for the protection and enhancement of historic, archae-
ological, artistic and landscape heritage), which was chaired by Senator Luigi
Franceschini.57 Consequently, bene culturale is not an expression that lends itself
to being used as a proper new form of words to indicate the same object as before.
In fact, it implies a decisive programmatic “salto di civiltà” (cultural shift) in terms

55 Lukács 1964, pp. 17–18.

56 Cf. Emiliani 1974b; Montella 1987, 2001b, 2003.
57 Implemented under Law 310 of 26 April 1964, the commission finished work in 1967 with the

publication of three volumes Per la salvezza dei Beni culturali in Italia. Atti e documenti della
Commissione d’indagine per la tutela e la valorizzazione del patrimonio storico, archeologico,
artistico e del paesaggio (1967). The term “beni culturali” was adopted later and its meaning
was fully confirmed in the first and second Papaldo Commissions, established by decisions dated
April 9, 1968 and March 31, 1971.
Cultural Value 11

of values and, consequently, in terms of purposes and intervention methods.58

In accordance with the democratic perspective of the new Republican constitutional
law, already using the term ‘bene’ (good)59 emphasises the value of use60 rather
than the intrinsic value of the objects. Each entry in the definition provided by the
Commissione Franceschini differs from the traditional idealistic approach. ‘Any’
contradicts the ranking that had been used until that time based on the canon of
excellence. ‘Evidence’ indicates that the cultural value lies in the richness and
authenticity of the information implicit in historical evidence even when there is no
aesthetic value. The adjective ‘material’, as opposed to ideal, refers to the series of
studies devoted to the ‘history of material culture’61 that originated in Poland with
Jan Rutkowski.62 This adjective does not deny the possible interest of intangible
historical evidence testifying to common conditions of existence. However, the
term suggests that concrete objects are more trusted sources of knowledge because
these objects are less easily altered.63 Original authenticity is, in fact, an essential
requirement of cultural evidence. It is always relative, even when concerning mate-
rial objects because time affects the appearance and the same meanings, with
respect to the subsequent ability to read. However, there is considerably more
doubt associated with intangible manifestations. Each time these manifestations
replicate, they inevitably change their traditional form such that the prototype is
often inconceivable; therefore, the manifestations could even be seen as historical
falsification. Nevertheless, when cults, rites, celebrations and traditional events
revive old customes that are place-specific, these events express the meaningful
culture of a community. However, scholars must determine how to evaluate the
trustworthiness of historical evidence to present the least risk of alteration and mis-
understanding. ‘Civilisation’, reconnecting to Enlightenment thought and anthro-
pology, finally incorporates the concept of culture from a social perspective.
This change development results in multiple and profound consequences. First,
there is an enormous expansion of the field because the expression beni culturali,
i.e. cultural heritage, includes rare and highly aesthetic quality objects but are

58 Cf. Montella 2009b.

59 “La nozione di « valore » si ritrova nel pensiero moderno nella ripresa della concezione sog-
gettiva del « bene » specialmente con Hobbes, per il quale un oggetto è « buono » non per sua
natura, ma perché preferito in funzione di una desiderabilità che non è presente in esso bensì nel
soggetto che opera la scelta” [“The notion of « value » is found in modern thought in the rise of
the subjective concept of « bene » especially with Hobbes, for whom an object is « good » not by
its nature, but because it is preferred in terms of a desirability that is not present in itself but in
the subject making the choice”]. Cf. Mazza 1997, p. 34.
60 Cf. Montella 2009c; Giannini 1967. Cf. also the interpretation given to Article 9 of the

Constitution by the Constitutional Court (case 269 of 1995).

61 Among the vast literature on the subject cf. Warnier 2005.
62 In 1953 the “Istituto di Storia della Cultura Materiale dell’Accademia delle Scienze Polacca”

was founded.
63 Notably, materiality is an essential requirement for legal protection, because the Italian legal

system for protection is exercised by means of an administrative constraint, which obviously

does not apply to intangible objects.
12 M. Montella

limited neither physically nor conceptually to the sum of those. On one hand, the
expression includes other evidence of civilisation and attach even greater impor-
tance to everyday materials, even more so if mass produced, because then the
expression reveals the ordinary conditions of existence. On the other hand, beni
culturali are not the only individual phenomena being considered; rather, they
include the value of the mutual relations as well as the historical and geographical
environment to which the items belong. From exceptional and important items and
individual items of particular rarity and worth, attention then turns to the systemic
and naturally local value64 of the historical evidence. Italian privilege is particu-
larly recognised in the continuous territorial fabric of cultural phenomena,65 hence
the coining of the term museo diffuso (diffused museum).
The more organic and complete manifestation of bene culturale is thus seen in the
landscape as the visible form of history, the palimpsest of civilisations that have lived
one after another in a place that shapes it in accordance with their needs. This mani-
festation also includes their tastes and values, in proportion to their physical and
mental capabilities to produce the desired transformations. Consequently, innovation

64 “Adeguati principi generali comuni a cui dovrebbero ispirarsi la strutturazione e i contenuti

dell’intervento pubblico […] sono sicuramente i seguenti: […] consapevolezza del carattere
di « situità » del patrimonio culturale e dunque valorizzazione della dimensione territoriale”
[“Appropriate common general principles which should guide the structure and content of public
intervention […] are certainly the following: […] awareness of the « place- specific » nature of
cultural heritage value and therefore the enhancement of the territorial dimension”] Documento
del coordinamento interregionale degli Assessori alla Cultura delle Regioni, 10 February 2005.
65 Cf. especially the writings of Bruno Toscano and Andrea Emiliani, who states for example

(Emiliani 1974a, pp. 207–208): “la realtà italiana è quella di un immenso territorio culturale di
oltre 300 mila chilometri quadrati […] con una sedimentazione storica capillare, una stratificazi-
one culturale fittissima, una cultura (si voglia o non si voglia) profondamente innestata in questa
stratificazione” [“the Italian situation is that of an immense cultural landscape of over 300,000
square km […] with a thorough historical sedimentation, a dense cultural stratification and a
culture (like it or not) that is deeply engaged in this stratification”]. Cf. also Chastel 1980, pp.
11–14: Italy, “che non ha conosciuto né la Riforma, né le violenze rivoluzionarie di cui ha sof-
ferto, per esempio, il patrimonio francese” [“that encountered neither the Reformation nor the
revolutionary violence suffered, for example, by French cultural heritage”], has been able to pre-
serve “in una maniera generale e veramente notevole […] qualche cosa d’essenziale della situ-
azione del passato” [“in a general way and truly remarkable […] an essential aspect of the past
situation”]. Here, not having been “pregiudicato radicalmente, come altrove, codesto curioso
privilegio storico della continuità […], si deve considerare la penisola come il luogo per eccel-
lenza del « museo naturale » . […] L’Italia s’è trovata così disseminata di luoghi, originali e
densi, come se la storia avesse distribuito nello spazio i suoi contrassegni maggiori. […] È questo
un privilegio di cui è normale stancarsi […] (ed è questo il problema degli italiani); ma questa
attitudine a integrare l’arte alla cultura, e la cultura al quotidiano, offre ai vicini d’Occidente un
esempio semplice e meraviglioso al quale è utile pensare quando si percorrono i musei d’Italia
[“radically undermined, as elsewhere, this curious historical privilege of continuity […], one
must consider the peninsula as the site par excellence of the « natural museum » . […] Italy
found itself so scattered with places, original and full, as if history had distributed in space its
greatest watermarks. […] This is a privilege it is normal to tire of […] (and this is the problem
of Italians); but this skill to integrate art and culture, culture and daily life, offers Western neigh-
bours a simple and wonderful example of what it is useful to think about when you visit the
museums of Italy”].
Cultural Value 13

in the function of museums is required and especially for those, typically the Italian
ones, made with locally sourced material; in this way, there is an openness toward
the preservation and enhancement of the entire cultural heritage in the local context.
With regard to conservation, the idea began to spread that, in spite of the eternity
claim entrusted to the technique of restoration, “è legge indefettibile della termodi-
namica che nulla possa conservarsi immutato a tempo indeterminato” (an unfailing
law of thermodynamics is that nothing can remain unchanged for an unlimited
period).66 It is also understood that efforts to repair the end-of-pipe damage have a
high risk of compromising the authenticity and thereby the correctness of artistic and
historical analysis. This understanding is also notable because of the choice made by
modern historical and artistic culture in restoration: to favor the aesthetic goal rather
than simply the conservative. Because the damage is irreparable, it is recognised that
the only correct measures are those designed to prevent or at least to limit damage.
Moreover, cultural heritage is now seen as a qualitative component of the environ-
ment and the landscape, as the anthropic system and historic palimpsest, is recog-
nised as having eminent importance for the quality of life of local people. Because
the deterioration of cultural heritage is caused by environmental factors, its fate does
not appear to be separated from the natural environment; therefore, protection must
be conducted systemically with ecology. The natural function of products,67 includ-
ing artistic ones, is also of the utmost importance. There is significant interest in
knowing for what advantage an object was made just with specific materials and
techniques and specific stylistic and iconographic forms and just by that artist. In
fact, regardless of the aesthetic quality of the result, it is the type of that advantage
that is useful in revealing the material and intangible needs and the assets, as well as
the ways in which those needs are satisfied and how they were brought together amid
the conditions of life and the value system of the communities in which that object
originated. However, formal art or precious materials do not cease to be appreciated,
but they are merely not enough in themselves, and beauty is no longer seen as abso-
lute and eternal. Rather, beauty is viewed in a historical and relative context based on
the time and place to which it belongs and is thereby objectified as much as possi-
ble.68 Art and culture are not viewed in opposition. However, unlike before, when
culture was limited to high expression and focused above all on the nobility of spirit

66 Urbani 1982, pp. 7–10, now in Urbani 2000, pp. 43–48.

67 The questions reveal the natural function of art objects relating in particular to the following:
who ordered them, why, to put them where; who made them, with what materials and techniques
and in what way; how they were used and regarded as well as how and why they eventually
changed location, uses, form and perceived meaning. Cf. Toscano 1999. Cf. also Montella 2003;
Dragoni 2005; Cerquetti 2007.
68 The question loses significance if it is, for example, whether Byzantine or Renaissance paint-

ing is more beautiful; each much be considered in relation to its own time and place. A Byzantine
image may appear to be beautiful to those who value the missing third dimension not as failure
but as being congruent with the cultural values of that time. In fact, compared to the expressions
of recent times, there are fewer people who appreciate such works, because the deeper one delves
into the past, the more one encounters dead languages that demand more complex interpretations.
14 M. Montella

measured by empathy with art, which was seen as the highest spiritual activity,69 art
and culture are now clearly separate. Although historical evidence can be of no artis-
tic or aesthetic value, it can have significant cultural value. When the history of cul-
ture as well as the history of art and the history of economy, properly understood in a
broad sense and not reduced to the quantitative dimension of profit both are aligned
with the common anthropological perspective on culture material. Thus, it is possible
to conclude without contradiction that ultimately bene culturale documents tout
court economic history and, as a result, all the aspects of the history of societies,70
with the economy being the common denominator of the determinants of production
as well as the use of goods and intangible assets of every kind in every field of
human action. Amid equivocal interpretations that are unfortunately very common, it

69 Again in 1961 the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana (1961, p. 705) saw in art not a

technique but an “attività spirituale dell’uomo diretta a esprimere una qualsiasi realtà, situazi-
one, stato d’animo, sentimento in opere dotate di validità estetica, per mezzo di parole, di forme,
di colori, di suoni” [“human spiritual activity directly expressing any fact, situation, mood or
sentiment in works with aesthetic validity, by means of words, shapes, colors or sounds”]. Cf.
Cerquetti 2010. Importantly “la ricognizione dei manuali pubblicati sul tema (si vedano in parti-
colare: Frey and Pommerehne 1991; Trimarchi 1993; Santagata 1998; Di Maio 1999; Heilbrun
and Gray 2001; Besana 2002; Benhamou 2004; Candela and Scorcu 2004; Ginsburgh and
Throsby 2006; Hesmondhalgh 2008; Towse 2010)”. Per quanto riguarda gli studi di marketing si
vedano [“Regarding the study of marketing see also”]: Mokwa et al. 1980; Diggle 1986; Colbert
1994; Kolb 2005) […] dimostra come la nozione di cultura fatta propria dagli studi economici sia
sovrapponibile a quella di arte, dalla quale spesso è sostanzialmente sostituita. Si veda in partico-
lare Throsby 2001. Secondo la definizione fornita da Bruno Frey, la nozione di cultura fatta pro-
pria dall’Economia dell’Arte coincide con « un’istituzione o un’organizzazione che offre servizi
artistici » (Frey 2009, p. 20), mentre « l’economia della cultura applica il pensiero economico alle
arti » (Frey and Meier 2006, p. 398). […] Lo stesso approccio è confermato dalle riviste di carattere
manageriale, tra le quali citiamo l’International Journal of Arts Management, periodico fondato nel
1998 e pubblicato dalla cattedra di Arts Management dell’École des Hautes Études Commerciales
(HEC) di Montreal” (Cerquetti 2010, p. 35) [“the review of works published on the subject (in par-
ticular please see: Frey and Pommerehne 1991; Trimarchi 1993; Santagata 1998; Di Maio 1999;
Heilbrun and Gray 2001; Besana 2002; Benhamou 2004; Candela and Scorcu 2004; Ginsburgh and
Throsby 2006; Hesmondhalgh 2008; Towse 2010. For marketing studies see also: Mokwa et al.
1980; Diggle 1986; Colbert 1994; Kolb 2005) […] shows how the notion of culture taken up by eco-
nomic studies can be superimposed with art, by which it is often substantially replaced (See in par-
ticular Throsby 2001). As defined by Bruno Frey, the notion of culture endorsed by the Economy of
Art coincides with « an institution or an organization supplying artistic services » (Frey 2009, p. 20),
instead « cultural economics applies economic thinking to the arts” » (Frey and Meier 2006,
p. 398). […] The same approach is confirmed by management magazines, among which we mention
the International Journal of Arts Management, founded in 1998 and published by the Chair of Arts
Management of École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in Montreal”], Cerquetti 2010, p. 35.
70 This interpretation solves the idealistic archetype of the unsurpassed separation between cul-

ture and economics, which is very damaging and widely persistent and exists not only in com-
mon opinion. However, it does not conflict in any way with the possible articulations of historical
studies. To facilitate the development and productivity of the historical investigation, we could
accept, for example, using in every possible respect the setting of Kula 1990, which states that
the history of material culture is the history of the means and methods used in production and
consumption. Whereas economic history deals with social factors that affect production and con-
sumption, the history of science and technique studies the technological level reached in a given
society regardless of its practical production”, cf. Chickling 2010.
Cultural Value 15

is therefore necessary to insist on three aspects. First, the bene culturale must be
historical evidence. The optimal description then is cultural heritage, which immedi-
ately excludes the sphere of contemporary production71: as far as it survives this will
eventually take on the quality of bene culturale when it becomes a heritage. To focus
on the essential, the need to distinguish between historical and current products,
moreover, is multi-sided. Notably, even cultural value is not determined by a techni-
cally objective characteristic of the phenomenon, but rather is inherent to the vision
of the observer, consequently the perception has the strength of ontological causality.
Therefore, bene culturale is a historiographical construct to be used by those who
have an interest in tracing, with the aid of reliable evidence, a past for which there is
no perfect memory. This is precisely what is not needed at the present time, until it
begins to be forgotten. In fact, outside of the intent of historiography and also in the
case of artistic products, the equivalence between the historical and the current can
only be seen if an ideal of absolute, timeless beauty is presumed, however incompati-
ble with the systemic and relativistic paradigm that imprints our season, at least in
the field of aesthetics. The legal time limit of at least half a century before an object
is worthy of protection72 is also evidence. (This is significant for food products
deemed to be of cultural interest with protection only when the “metodiche di
lavorazione, conservazione e stagionatura risultino consolidate nel tempo […],
secondo regole tradizionali, per un periodo non inferiore ai venticinque anni” (pro-
cessing, storage and aging methods have been consolidated over time […], according
to traditional rules, for a period not less than 25 years).73 This requirement necessi-
tates different management methods and different managerial organisations for his-
torical and current products.74 In fact, there are radically different constraints and
opportunities associated with the legal suprasystem. Consequently, a decisive distinc-
tion must be made. Further connecting these considerations is the insurmountable
difference that the production (and reproduction) of current culture is, rightly and
necessarily, related to the market. Goods are not normally configured as public in
terms of ownership and in which there is no public interest or an efficiently
expressed preference of the community. Instead, as we know, beni culturali are nor-
mally public in Italy. When these items are private but with a recognised public inter-
est, they are still subject to restrictions regarding use for the protection of societal
interests. The formation of community preferences are determinants of the public
quality of cultural heritage as a merit good and require an extended period of time
(which legislation dictates as approximately 50 years). Thus, an unresolved process
exists regarding the products of modernity. Among the many and important

71 Associated with this is a large part of performing arts and the modern cultural industry.
72 “Non sono soggette alla disciplina del presente Titolo le cose […] che siano opera di autore
vivente o la cui esecuzione non risalga ad oltre cinquanta anni” [“Not covered by this Chapter are
works by living authors, or whose realisation was less than 50 years previous”], c. 5, Article 10,
D.lgs. 42/2004.
73 Article 1, c. 1 e 2 D.M. 350/1999.
74 Products are specific; for example, a museum is different from an art gallery, a library from a

bookshop, and so on.

16 M. Montella

implications of this assumption, the instability of value judgments should be particu-

larly noted because this is irrevocably linked to the human condition. Now and in the
future, those things whose importance is recognised by the temporary value system
will be preserved. The story of the preserved and the lost, revealing the histoire à
part entière, is the history of utility with respect to needs. It is not surprising that
much of what has come to us has been preserved at the cost of the changes made to
effectively adapt to changing needs. Relative to our time it seems legitimate to assert
that the expansion of the range of values gained with the advent of the concept of
bene culturale offers a greater chance of survival for more historic and artistic herit-
age. The pleasure of beauty, which was previously leveraged almost exclusively, has
added the intelligence of the past in all its possible dimensions. Furthermore, it has
added to all of these other interests, including material and even monetary interests,
which can be derived from cultural heritage. This lever is relative not only to tourism,
as has been the case for centuries, but also to everything that generates value both at
a macroeconomic and at a business level. In fact, at this stage of the knowledge econ-
omy, tacitly transmitted skills and history preserved in its milieu are deemed to be
factors of production in a Schumpeterian manner and the driver of a matchless com-
petitive advantage for made in products (see paras 1.6 and 1.7). Therefore, enhance-
ment is an essential condition for protection, particularly for the success of this
business. Consequently, professionals would be required to disclose and use the term
bene culturale developed by the Franceschini Commission, not interpreting it in all
possible ways under a lexical profile, but strictly adhering to the intended and now
canonised meaning of the stock of cultural heritage accumulated over the centuries
that has become a preference of the community. Processes that create new value and
new culture should be imposed on this stock, this economic and historic capital, this
generative potential75 that does not come ex abrupto because it is a creation of value
from value in continuity or by incremental or revolutionary catastrophic innova-
tion.76 The second aspect that must be stressed is that the cultural importance of the
evidence of civilisation lies in its authenticity, reliability and the type and quantity of
information provided. The eventual aesthetic quality is a value that, even when sig-
nificant, is nevertheless an adjunct, although for many it may increase in importance
to being a ‘derivative’.77 No less significant, then, is that this informative potential
that is the significance of the beni culturali is valued more and more precisely when

75 Guatri 1996, pp. 51–57 speaks about the potential on behalf of business.
76 The concept of value implies a perspective dimension, because it concerns the ability to
consistently generate more value, creating value from the value. Cf. Vicari 1995; Mazza 1997;
Montella 2009a.
77 The concept of “derivative” in business studies, particularly with regard to services and mar-

keting, is very effective even for different areas, because it indicates a peripheral, incidental
service compared to the core business of a firm, which became of primary importance to the
user (Eiglier and Langeard 2000). In this case it points out quite accurately that the user can be
induced to visit by the formal qualities of the object, rather than by the service of historical infor-
mation provided, for instance, by a museum through the exhibition of properly understood bene
culturale, if its interests and, therefore, its cultural resources adhere to the idealistic paradigm.
Cf. Baccarani 2001; Ciappei et al. 2002.
Cultural Value 17

Table 1  Cultural heritage: contrasting perspectives. Source Development personnel

Idealism: rare and valuable Material culture, anthropological notion of culture: bene
aesthetic culturale
Cultura animi Civilisation
Rarity All evidence of civilisation
Excellence Unexceptional objects and better if mass- produced, because
they better describe the common conditions of life
Beauty Trusted historical Information
Important objects Unintentional documents
Ideal, absolute value Material, historical, contextualized value
Value in itself, individuality Systemic value, context
Universal value Time- and place-specific value
Ownership value Value of use
Admiration, emotion Intelligence, knowledge
Conservation as musealisation Conservation as continuity of use, maintenance, sustainable
development, urban planning
End of the pipe restoration of Prevention, damage reduction with intervention at the territo-
individual objects rial level to counter the damaging environmental factors

seen in relation to the historical and geographical context to which it pertains. In

short, in making a schematic list, it must never be forgotten that bene culturale is a
concept referring to the complex historical, intellectual and material products of
human society, never allowing any confusion between art and culture. Converse to
the myth of idealistic ‘pure art’, this concept considers the wide range of values
related to the natural function and the broad economic utility of products, including
art. Bene culturale concerns the systemic paradigm of complexity as an alternative to
the mechanistic, analytical summation of the previous period. It postulates a global
and systemic survey methodology. This concept also involves a radical change of
techniques of knowledge and protection, moving from a catalogue of individual
things to geo-referencing knowledge and from the post factum restoration of a single
item to the prevention of damage to the environmental and territorial dimensions.
Bene culturale is place and time specific because it cannot be considered separately
from its context, from the unbroken continuity of meaning and physical extension of
the landscape.
Without these conditions, we are not dealing with beni culturali (Table 1).

4 The Landscape as Bene Culturale

(From natural beauty to historical sediment)

The overall and organic product of a community, the material evidence of its
entire history regarding what has been preserved and lost in the continual trans-
formation of its environment, its needs and its capacity to respond, is undoubt-
edly the landscape: bene culturale par excellence. If a test is necessary, imagine
18 M. Montella

that all of the objects of value found in a city or a territory have been preserved,
even p­ rotected in a museum, but then the place is lost. Judge what remains of the
cultural value, as well as the artistic and purely aesthetic value of, for example,
Venice or Syracuse, Lunigiana or Salento.
The notion of landscape as bene culturale, therefore, has not remained the same. It
is different from the aestheticising notion substantiated in Italian legislation from the
early twentieth century,78 completed in 1939,79 which in fact still continues,80 con-
stantly re-editing the paradigm of beauty in art and beauty in nature. The notion of the
landscape is not resolved by ‘natural beauty’ as it was in Law 1497 of 1939, and as it is
now in the new Code of 2004, despite the nominal innovation81 that it adopted. It does
not seek protection for the supposed survival of pristine nature. This concept cannot be
limited to unusual geological features, to “bellezze panoramiche considerate come
quadri naturali” (panoramic beauty considered as natural pictures), to glimpses of bel-
vedere “dai quali si goda lo spettacolo di quelle bellezze” (from where you enjoy the
sight of that beauty).82 Instead it postulates the anthropic aspect which, beyond the aes-
thetic item, detects the footprints of human activities that meet the needs of various
moments and therefore the economic organisation of the territory, the urbanisation, the
productive order of the countryside, the channelling of water, the articulation of roads,
the industrial settlements, the sacralisation of place names, the toponomatic, etc.
78 Although the consideration of the landscape as a historical fact is even found in the nineteenth

century, for example by Ruskin, and in the first decades of the twentieth century in Italy and
elsewhere, the aesthetic value absolutely prevailed in cultural and legal opinion and permeated all
legislative measures adopted in Italy. Croce, for example, the minister for public education, pro-
posed in the Senate on September 25, 1929 his bill No. 204, “Per la tutela delle bellezze naturali
e degli immobili di particolare interesse storico” [for the protection of natural beauty and build-
ings of particular historical interest], culminating in Law No. 778 dated June 11, 1922. Croce
recognized, but very marginally, a relationship between buildings and “civil history”, although
he simply wrote of “civil and literary history”. Even if, cites Ruskin, claiming “che anche il
patriottismo nasce dalla secolare carezza del suolo agli occhi, ed altro non essere che la rappre-
sentazione materiale e visibile della patria” [“that also patriotism comes from the secular caress
of the soil on the eyes, and that is nothing other than the material and visible representation of
the mother country”], he is basically driven by the convinction of having to defend “le bellezze
della natura, che danno all’uomo entusiasmi spirituali così puri e sono in realtà ispiratrici di
opere eccelse” [“the beauties of nature, which give man such pure spiritual enthusiasm and are
in reality inspirational for sublime works”], to match the “bisogni del senso estetico più raffi-
nato” [“more refined needs of aesthetic sense”], inherent to which “sentimento, tutto moderno,
che si impadronisce di noi allo spettacolo di acque precipitanti nell’abisso, di cime nevose, di
foreste secolari, di riviere sonanti, di orizzonti infiniti” [“modern sentiment, that seizes us with
spectacles of water falling into the abyss, of snowy peaks, of centuries old forests, of the sound
of rivers, of infinite horizons”] and that “deriva della stessa sorgente, da cui fluisce la gioia che
ci pervade alla contemplazione di un quadro dagli armonici colori, all’audizione di una melodia
ispirata, alla lettura di un libro fiorito d’immagini e di pensieri” [“comes from the same source,
from which flows the pervasive joy of contempleting a picture with harmonious colours, of lis-
tening to an inspired melody, of reading a book full of images and thoughts”].
79 L. 1089/39; L. 1497/39.
80 D.lgs. 42/2004 with successive modifications and integrations.
81 Article 131 D.lgs. 42/2004.
82 Article 1, L. 1497/39.
Cultural Value 19

This concept of landscape has now achieved full intellectual legitimacy as

shown by the fact that UNESCO has long included anthropic landscapes in the list
of World Heritage Sites because of their cultural quality. In addition, the member
states of the Council of Europe have felt the need to stipulate a convention83 for
the preservation and enhancement “sia dei paesaggi che possono essere consid-
erati eccezionali, sia dei paesaggi della vita quotidiana” (either of landscapes that
might be considered outstanding, or landscapes of everyday life) and even “paes-
aggi degradati” (degraded landscapes).84 These groups believe that in every case
the landscape “coopera all’elaborazione delle culture locali e rappresenta una
componente fondamentale del patrimonio culturale e naturale dell’Europa, con-
tribuendo così al benessere e alla soddisfazione degli esseri umani e al consolida-
mento dell’identità europea” (cooperates in the development of local cultures and
is a key component of the cultural and natural heritage of Europe, contributing to
the welfare and satisfaction of human beings and the strengthening of European
identity). Significantly, moreover, the Code of 2004 also nominally adapted to the
definition contained in the European Landscape Convention, referring to the char-
acteristics that “derivano dalla natura, dalla storia umana e dalle reciproche inter-
relazioni” (are derived from nature, human history and mutual interrelations).85
Obviously the protection of such an asset cannot be optimally achieved by relying
only on prohibitions of use or on an obligation of museification. In accordance with
the paradigm of sustainable development, the only practical way is the ability to dis-
pose of an asset also by changing it, but in a conscious way, because in an all-embrac-
ing democratic system, transformations cannot be decided without taking into account
“le aspirazioni delle popolazioni per quanto riguarda le caratteristiche paesaggis-
tiche del loro ambiente di vita” (the aspirations of the public with regard to the land-
scape features of their living environment).86 The possible protection of “aspetti
significativi o caratteristici di un paesaggio” (significant aspects or characteristics of
a landscape)87 can only come from the enhancement of them or from the ability to
make the cultural value of them perceptible to an efficient number of citizens, that is,
numerous or influential enough88 to appropriately guide the choice of policy makers.

83 Convenzione europea del Paesaggio, Firenze 20 Ottobre 2000. The preface specifically
declares the Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe (Granada,
3 October 1985), the European Convention for the Protection of Archaeological Heritage
(Valletta, 16 January 1992), the Convention on Biodiversity (Rio, 5 June 1992), the Convention
on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (Paris, November 16, 1972), and the
Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to
Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus, June 25, 1998).
84 Article 2.
85 D.lgs. 42/04, Article 131.
86 Article 1, letter c.
87 Article 1, letter d.
88 It is the theme of “game theory” in its many variations of social interest and, more specifically, of the

“capture theory” and the “theory of public interest”. From the vast literature on the subject Cf. Downs
1957; Becker 1958; Friedman 1971; Stigler 1971, 1974; Posner 1974; Buchanan et al. 1980; Aktinson
and Stiglitz 1980; Pennisi 1986; Persson and Tabellini 1990; Ordeshook 1992; Blanchard 2000.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Fig. 7.—Harem court in the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad; compiled from
Thomas.
Observe that the courts of the harem give access to three main
groups of chambers, and that those groups have no direct
communication with each other. Each of the three has its own
separate entrance. Observe also that the three bed chambers we
have mentioned have no entrances but those from the inner court;
that they are all richly decorated, and that nothing in their shape or
arrangement admits of the idea that they were for the use of
attendants or others in an inferior station—-oriental custom having at
all times caused such persons to sleep on carpets, mats, or
mattresses, spread on the paved floors at night and put away in
cupboards during the day—and you will allow that the conclusion to
which those who have studied the plan of Sargon’s harem have
arrived, is, at least, a very probable one. Sargon had three queens,
who inhabited the three suites of apartments; each had assigned to
her use one of the state bedrooms we have described, but only
occupied it when called upon to receive her royal spouse.[26] On
other nights she slept in her own apartments among her eunuchs
and female domestics. These apartments comprised a kind of large
saloon open to the sky, but sheltered at one end by a semi-dome (T,
X, and especially Z, where the interior is in a better state of
preservation). Stretched upon the cushions with which the daïs at
this end of the room was strewn, the sultana, if we may use such a
term, like those of modern Turkey, could enjoy the performances of
musicians, singers, and dancers, she could receive visits and kill her
time in the dreamy fashion so dear to Orientals. We have already
given (Vol. I. Fig. 55,) a restoration in perspective of the semi-dome
which, according to Thomas, covered the further ends of these
reception halls.[27]
Suppose this part of the palace restored to its original condition; it
would be quite ready to receive the harem of any Persian or Turkish
prince. The same precautions against escape or intrusion, the same
careful isolation of rival claimants for the master’s favours, would still
be taken. With its indolent and passionate inmates a jealousy that
hesitates at no crime by which a rival can be removed, is common
enough, and among: the numerous slaves a willing instrument for
the execution of any vengeful project is easily found. The moral, like
the physical conditions, have changed but little, and the oriental
architect has still to adopt the precautions found necessary thirty
centuries ago.
We find another example of this pre-existence of modern
arrangements in the vast extent of the palace offices. These consist
of a series of chambers to the south-west of the court marked A, and
of a whole quarter, larger than the harem, which lies in the south-
eastern corner of the mound, and includes several wide quadrangles
(B, C´, C, D, D´, F, G, &c.).[28] We could not describe this part of the
plan in detail without giving it more space than we can spare. We
must be content with telling our readers that by careful study, of their
dispositions and of the objects found in them during the excavations,
M. Place has succeeded in determining, sometimes with absolute
certainty, sometimes with very great probability, the destination of
nearly every group of chambers in this part of the palace. The south-
west side of the great court was occupied by stores; the rooms were
filled with jars, with enamelled bricks, with things made of iron and
copper, with provisions and various utensils for the use of the palace,
and with the plunder taken from conquered countries; it was, in tact,
what would now be called the khazneh or treasury. The warehouses
did not communicate with each other; they had but one door, that
leading into the great court. But opening out of each there was a
small inner room, which served perhaps as the residence of a store-
keeper.
At the opposite side of the court lay what Place calls the active
section of the offices (la partie active des dépendances), the rooms
where all those domestic labours were carried on without which the
luxurious life of the royal dwelling would have come to a standstill.
Kitchens and bakehouses were easily recognized by the contents of
the clay vases found in them; bronze rings let into the wall betrayed
the stables—in the East of our own day, horses and camels are
picketed to similar rings. Close to the stables a long gallery, in which
a large number of chariots and sets of harness could be conveniently
arranged, has been recognized as a coach-house. There are but few
rooms in which some glimpse of their probable destination has not
been caught. In two small chambers between courts A and B, the
flooring stones are pierced with round holes leading to square
sewers, which, in their turn, join a large brick-vaulted drain. The use
of such a contrivance is obvious.[29]
We may fairly suppose that the rooms in which no special
indication of their purpose was found, were mostly servants’
lodgings. They are, as a rule, of very small size.
On the other hand, courts were ample and passages wide. Plenty
of space was required for the circulation of the domestics who
supplied the tables of the seraglio and harem, for exercising horses,
and for washing chariots. If, after the explorations of Place, any
doubts could remain as to the purpose of this quarter of the palace,
they would be removed by the Assyrian texts. Upon the terra-cotta
prism on which Sennacherib, after narrating his campaigns,
describes the restoration of his palace, he says, “the kings, my
predecessors, constructed the office court for baggage, for
exercising horses, for the storing of utensils.” Esarhaddon speaks, in
another inscription, of “the part built by the kings, his predecessors,
for holding baggage, for lodging horses, camels, dromedaries and
chariots.”[30]
We have now made the tour of the palace, and we find ourselves
again before the propylæum whence we set out. This propylæum
must have been one of the finest creations of Assyrian architecture.
It had no fewer than ten winged bulls of different sizes, some
parallel, others perpendicular, to the direction of the wall. There were
six in the central doorway, which was, in all probability, reserved for
the king and his suite. A pair of smaller colossi flanked each of the
two side doors, through which passed, no doubt between files of
guards, the ceaseless crowd of visitors, soldiers, and domestics. The
conception of this façade, with its high substructure, and the
ascending: lines of a double flight of steps connecting it with the
town below, is really grand, and the size of the court into which it led,
not much less than two acres and a half, was worthy of such an
approach.
The huge dimensions of this court are to be explained, not only
by the desire for imposing size, but also by the important part it
played in the economy of the palace. By its means the three main
divisions, the seraglio, the harem, and the khan, were put into
communication with each other. When there were no particular
reasons for making a détour, it was crossed by any one desiring to
go from one part to another. It was a kind of general rendezvous and
common passage, and its great size was no more than necessary for
the convenient circulation of servants with provisions for the royal
tables, of military detachments, of workmen going to their work, of
the harem ladies taking the air in palanquins escorted by eunuchs,
and of royal processions, in which the king himself took part.
As to whether or no any part of the platform was laid out in
gardens, or the courts planted with trees and flowers, we do not
know. Of course the excavations would tell us nothing on that point,
but evidence is not wanting that the masters for whom all this
architectural splendour was created were not without a love for
shady groves, and that they were fond of having trees in the
neighbourhood of their dwellings. The hanging gardens of Babylon
have been famous for more than twenty centuries. The bas-reliefs
tell us that the Assyrians had an inclination towards the same kind of
luxury. On a sculptured fragment from Kouyundjik we find a range of
trees crowning a terrace supported by a row of pointed arches (Vol.
I., Fig. 42); another slab, from the same palace of Sennacherib,
shows us trees upheld by a colonnade (Fig. 8). If Sargon established
in any part of his palace a garden like that hinted at in the sculptured
scene in which Assurbanipal is shown at table with his wife (Vol. I.,
Fig. 27), it must have been in the north-western angle of the
platform, near the temple and staged tower. In this corner of the
mound there is plenty of open space, and being farther from the
principal entrances of the palace, it is more quiet and retired than
any other part of the royal dwelling. Here then, if anywhere, we may
imagine terraces covered with vegetable earth, in which the vine, the
fig, the pomegranate and the tall pyramid of the cypress, could
flourish and cast their grateful shadows. The existence of such
gardens is, however, so uncertain, that we have given them no place
in our attempts at restoration.
 Fig. 8.—A hanging garden; from
Layard.
For the service of such a building a liberal supply of water was
necessary. Whence did it come? and how was it stored? I have been
amazed to find that most of those who have studied the Assyrian
palaces have never asked themselves these questions.[31] One
might have expected to find the building provided, as is usual in hot
countries, with spacious cisterns that could be easily filled during the
rainy season; but neither at Khorsabad, Kouyundjik, nor Nimroud,
have the slightest traces of any such tanks been found. With the
materials at their disposal it would, perhaps, have been too difficult
for the Assyrian builders to make them water-tight. Neither have any
wells been discovered. Their depth must have been too great for
common use. We must remember that the height of the mound has
to be added to the distance below the ordinary surface of the country
at which watery strata would be tapped. It is, on the whole, probable
that the supply for the palace inmates was carried up in earthenware
jars, and that the service occupied a string of women, horses, and
donkeys, passing and repassing between the river, or rather the
canal, that carried the waters of the Khausser to the very foot of the
mound, and the palace, from morning until night.[32]

We have now concluded our study of the arrangements of an

Assyrian palace, and we may safely affirm that those arrangements
were not invented, all standing, by the architect of Sargon. They
were suggested partly by the nature of the materials used, partly by
the necessities to be met. The plan of an Assyrian palace must have
grown in scale and consistence with the power of the Assyrian kings.
As their resources became greater, and their engineers more skilled,
increased convenience and a richer decoration was demanded from
their architects. We have dwelt at length upon Khorsabad, because it
affords the completest and best preserved example of a type often
repeated in the course of ten or twelve centuries. In some respects,
in its constructive processes and the taste of its decorations, for
instance, the Assyrian palace resembled the other buildings of the
country; its chief originality consisted in the number of its rooms and
the principles on which they were distributed.
The method followed in the combination of these countless
apartments is, as M. Place has said, “almost naïve in its
simplicity.”[33] The plan is divided into as many separate
parallelograms as there were departments to be accommodated;
these rectangles are so arranged that they touch each other either at
an angle or by the length of a side, but they never penetrate one into
the other, and they never command one another. They are
contiguous, or nearly so, but always independent. Thus the palace
contains three main divisions, the seraglio, the harem, and the khan.
Each of these is a rectangle, and each lies upon one side of the
great common square marked A on our plan. The same principle
holds good in the minor subdivisions. These consist of smaller
rectangles, also opening upon uncovered courts, and without any
lateral communication with each other. Examine the plan and you will
see the system carried out as rigidly in the seraglio as in the harem.
Thus the various sections of the palace are at once isolated and
close together, so that their occupants could live their lives and
perform their duties in the most perfect independence.
The methodical spirit by which these combinations were
governed was all the more necessary in a building where no
superposition of one story upon another was possible. The whole
palace was one vast ground floor. To arrange on one level more than
thirty courtyards and more than two hundred halls and chambers, to
provide convenient means of access from one to the other, to keep
accessory parts in due subordination, to give each room its most
fitting place in the whole—such was the problem put before the
Assyrian constructor. Profiting by a long experience he solved it with
the utmost judgment, and proved himself to be wanting neither in
forethought, skill, nor inventive power.

§ 3. Other Palaces of Mesopotamia.

The type of palace we have studied at Khorsabad, is, like the

staged towers, a development from Chaldæan structures whose
leading lines were established many centuries before the princes of
Calah and Nineveh began to raise their sumptuous houses. The
sites of the ancient cities of Lower Chaldæa inclose buildings that
seem to date from a very remote epoch, buildings in which we may
recognize the first sketch, as it were, for the magnificent dwellings of
Sargon and Sennacherib.
The most important of these buildings, and the most interesting,
is the ruin at Warka, which Loftus calls Wuswas (Fig. 172, Vol. I.,
letter B on the plan).[34] Unfortunately his explorations were very
partial and his description is very summary, while his plan of the ruin
only gives a small part of it (Fig. 9). There is, however, enough to
show the general character of the structure. The latter stood upon a
rectangular mound about 660 feet long and 500 wide. In spite of the
enormous accumulation of rubbish, Loftus succeeded in making out
an open door in the outer wall, and several chambers of different
sizes communicating with a large court. There was the same
thickness of wall and the same absence of symmetry as at
Khorsabad; the openings were not in the middle of the rooms. In the
long wall, decorated with panels and grooves, which still stands
among the ruins to a height of about twenty-four feet and a length of
about 172 feet, the posterior façade, through which there was no
means of ingress and egress, may be recognized. We have already
copied Loftus’s reproduction of this façade for the sake of its
decoration (Fig. 100, Vol. I.).

Fig. 9.—Plan of a palace at Warka;

from Loftus.
The building at Sirtella (Tello) in which M. de Sarzec discovered
such curious statues, was less extensive; it was only about 175 feet
long by 102 wide. The faces of the parallelogram were slightly
convex, giving to the building something of the general form of a
terra-cotta tub (Fig. 150, Vol I.). Here the excavations were pushed
far enough to give us a better idea of the general arrangement than
we can get at Warka. A great central court, about which numerous
square and oblong apartments are arranged, has been cleared;
there is a separate quarter, which may be the harem; at one angle of
the court the massive stages of a zigguratt may be recognized. The
walls are entirely of burnt brick. They are decorated only on the
principal façade, where the ornaments belong to the same class as
those of Wuswas—semi-columns mixed with grooves in which the
elevation of a stepped battlement is reproduced horizontally.
In none of the ruins of habitations found in this district by the
English explorers, were the chambers other than rectangular. Taylor
cleared a few halls in two buildings at Mugheir (Fig. 10) and Abou-
Sharein (Figs. 11 and 12) respectively. Both of these stood on
artificial mounds, and it is difficult to believe that they were private
dwellings. The walls of several rooms at Mugheir seemed to have
been decorated with glazed bricks; at Abou-Sharein there was
nothing but roughly painted stucco. In one chamber the figure of a
man with a bird on his fist might yet be distinguished.
Fig. 10.—Plan of chambers at Mugheir;
from Taylor.
Fig. 11.—Plan of chambers at Abou-Sharein; from Taylor.
 Fig. 12.—Plan of chambers at Abou-Sharein; from Taylor.
It is in Babylon that we ought to have found the masterpieces of
this architecture, in that capital of Nebuchadnezzar where the
Chaldæan genius, just before it finally lost its autonomy, made the
supreme effort that resulted in the buildings attributed by the
travelled Greeks to their famous Semiramis. We have no reason to
disbelieve Ctesias when he says that there were two palaces in
Babylon, one on the left and another on the right bank of the
Euphrates. “Semiramis,” says Diodorus, following his usual guide,
“built a double residence for herself, close to the river and on both
sides of the bridge, whence she might at one and the same time
enjoy the view over the whole city, and, so to speak, keep the keys
of the most important parts of the capital in her own power. As the
Euphrates runs southward through Babylon, one of these palaces
faced the rising, the other the setting, sun. Round the palace that
faced westwards, she built a wall sixty stades in circumference,
&c.”[35]
 The larger and more richly decorated of the two palaces was that
on the left bank.[36] Its opposite neighbour has vanished and left no
trace. The Euphrates has been gradually encroaching on its right
bank ever since the days of antiquity, and has long ago disunited
and carried away the last stones and bricks of the western palace.
The eastern palace is on the other hand still represented by one of
the great mounds that dominate the plain; this mound is called the
Kasr, or castle (Fig. 183, vol. i.). Its circumference is now not far
short of a mile.[37] Its form is that of an oblong parallelogram, with its
longest side next the river and parallel to it. The flanks of the mound
have, however, been so deeply seamed by searchers for treasure
and building materials that no vestige of its arrangements is now to
be traced. The bricks employed in the building all bore the name of
Nebuchadnezzar.
South of the Kasr there is another mound, rising about one
hundred feet above the plain and very irregular in shape. This is Tel-
Amran-ibn-Ali, or Tell-Amran, (Fig. 183, vol. i.). It is agreed that this
contains all that remains of the hanging gardens, a conjecture that is
confirmed by the numerous tombs dating from the Seleucid, the
Parthian, and the Sassanid periods, which have been found in its
flanks whenever any excavation has been attempted.[38] Tell-Amram
seems to have been a far more popular depository for corpses than
either Babil, the Kasr, or the Birs-Nimroud, a preference which is
easily explained. Whether we believe, with Diodorus, that the
gardens were supported by great stone architraves, or with Strabo,
that they stood upon several stories of vaults, we may understand
that in either case their substructure offered long galleries which,
when the gardens were no longer kept up and the whole building
was abandoned to itself, were readily turned into burial places.[39]
The palace and temple mounds did not offer the same facilities.
They were solid, and graves would have had to be cut in them
before a corpse could be buried in their substance. The Kasr was a
ready-made catacomb into which any number of coffins could be
thrust with the smallest expenditure of trouble.
 Excavations in the Kasr and at Tell-Amran might bring many
precious objects to light, but we can hardly think that any room or
other part of a building in such good preservation as many of those
in the Assyrian palaces would be recovered. To the latter, then, we
shall have again to turn to complete our study of the civil architecture
of Mesopotamia.
If we have placed the edifices from which the English explorers
have drawn so many precious monuments in the second line, it is
not only because their exploration is incomplete, but also because
they do not lend themselves to our purpose quite so readily as that
cleared by MM. Botta and Place. At Khorsabad there have never
been any buildings but those of Sargon; city and palace were built at
a single operation, and those who undertake their study do not run
any risk of confusion between the work of different generations. The
plan we have discussed so minutely is really that elaborated by the
Assyrian architect to whom Sargon committed the direction of the
work. We can hardly say the same of the ruins explored by Mr.
Layard and his successors. The mounds of Nimroud and Kouyundjik
saw one royal dwelling succeed another, and the architects who
were employed upon them hardly had their hands free. They had, to
a certain extent, to reckon with buildings already in existence. These
may sometimes have prevented them from extending their works as
far as they wished in one direction or another, or even compelled
them now and then to vary the levels of their floors; so that it is not
always easy for a modern explorer to know exactly how he stands
among the ruins of their creations, or to clearly distinguish the work
of one date from that of another.[40]
It was at Nimroud that this perplexity was chiefly felt, until the
decipherment of the inscriptions came to enable different periods
and princes to be easily distinguished. This name of Nimroud,
handed down by the ancient traditions collected in Genesis, has
been given to a mound which rises about six leagues to the south of
Mossoul, on the left bank of the Tigris, and both by its form and
elevation attracts the attention of every traveller that descends the
stream. The river is now at some distance from the ruins, but as our
map shows (Fig. 1), it is easy to trace its ancient bed, which was
close to the foot of the mound. The latter is an elongated
parallelogram, about 1,300 yards in one direction, and 750 in the
other (see Vol. I., Fig. 145). Above its weather-beaten sides, and the
flat expanse at their summit, stood, before the excavations began,
the apex of the conical mound in which Layard found the lower
stories of a staged tower (Fig. 13). Calah seems to have been the
first capital of the Assyrian Empire and even to have preserved some
considerable importance after the Sargonids had transported the
seat of government to Nineveh, and built their most sumptuous
buildings in the latter city. Nearly every king of any importance, down
to the very last years of the monarchy, left the mark of his hand upon
Nimroud.[41]
Of all the royal buildings at Calah that which has been most
methodically and thoroughly cleared is the oldest of all, the north-
western palace, or palace of Assurnazirpal (885–860). It has not
been entirely laid open, but the most richly decorated parts,
corresponding to the seraglio at Khorsabad, have been cleared. The
adjoining plan (Fig. 14) shows arrangements quite similar to those of
Sargon’s palace. A large court is surrounded on three sides by as
many rectangular groups of apartments, each group forming a
separate suite, with its own entrances to the court.
 Fig. 13.—General view of Nimroud; from Layard.
The chief entrance faces the north. Two great doorways flanked
by winged and human-headed lions, give access to a long gallery (4
on plan). At the western end of this gallery there is a small platform
or daïs raised several steps above the rest of the floor. Upon this, no
doubt, the king’s throne was placed on those reception days when
subjects and vassals crowded to his feet. Some idea of what such a
reception must have been may be gained from an Indian Durbar, or
from the Sultan of Turkey’s annual review of all his great
functionaries of state at the feast of Courban-Baïram. I witnessed the
latter ceremony in the Old Seraglio in 1857, and when those great
officers, like the mollahs and sheiks of the dervishes, who had
preserved the turban and floating robes of the East, bent to the feet
of Abd-al-Medjid, I was irresistibly reminded of the pompous
ceremonials sculptured on the walls of Nineveh and Persepolis.
 Fig. 14.—-Plan of the north-western palace at Nimroud;
from Layard.
The walls of this saloon were entirely lined in their lower parts
with reliefs representing the king surrounded by his chief officers,
offering prayers to the god of his people and doing homage for the
destruction of his enemies and for successful hunts (Fig. 15). The
figures in these reliefs are larger than life. A doorway flanked by two
bulls leads into another saloon (2 on plan) rather shorter and
narrower than the first. In this the ornamentation is less varied. The
limestone slabs are carved with eagle-headed genii in pairs,
separated by the sacred tree (Vol. I., Fig. 8). The inner wall of this
saloon is pierced with a fine doorway leading into the central court
(1), while in one corner there is a narrower opening into a third long
hall (6), which runs along the eastern side of the court. It was in this
latter room that the finest sculptures, those that may perhaps be
considered the masterpieces of the Assyrian artists, were found.
Behind this saloon there was another, rather longer, but not quite so
wide (7); then five chambers, completing the palace on this side. To
the south of the great court there were two large halls (3 and 5)
similar in arrangement to those already mentioned but less richly
decorated, and several smaller rooms opening some into the halls,
others into the passages on the west of the court. As to whether the
latter was inclosed or not on the west by buildings like those on the
other three sides we cannot now be certain, as on that side the
mound has been much broken away by the floods of the Tigris,
which once bathed its foot. There is nothing to forbid the hypothesis
of a grand staircase on this side leading up from the river bank.[42]
In the central and south-western palaces, built by Shalmaneser II.
and his grandson Vulnirari III. the excavations have not been carried
far enough to allow the plans to be restored. The explorers have
been content to carry off inscriptions and fragments of sculpture in
stone, ivory, and metal.[43]
The south-western palace, or palace of Esarhaddon, has been
the scene of explorations sufficiently prolonged to give us some idea
of its general arrangements (Fig. 16). A curious circumstance was
noticed by the English explorers. While the works of Assurbanipal
bore the strongest marks of care and skill, those of Esarhaddon
showed signs of having been carried out with a haste that amounted
to precipitation, and his palace was never finished. Nearly all the
alabaster slabs were taken from older buildings.[44] Most of these
were fixed with their original carved surfaces against the wall, but a
few were turned the proper way. Doubtless, had time served, these
would have been smoothed down and reworked. Nothing was
finished, however, but the bulls and sphinxes at the doors (Vol. I. Fig.
85) and a few reliefs in their immediate neighbourhood.[45]
Esarhaddon died, no doubt, before the completion of the work, which
was never continued.
Fig. 15.—Assurnazirpal offering a libation to the gods after his victory over a wild
bull. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
And yet his architect was by no means lacking in ambition. Upon
the southern face of the building he intended to build the largest hall,
which, so far as we know, was ever attempted in an Assyrian palace.
This saloon would have been about 170 feet long by 63 feet wide. As
soon as the walls were raised he saw that he could not roof it in.
Neither barrel vault nor timber ceiling could have so great a span. He
determined to get over the difficulty by erecting a central wall down
the major axis of the room, upon which either timber beams or the
springers of a double vault could rest. This wall was pierced by
several openings, and was stopped some distance short of the two
end walls. It divided the saloon into four different rooms (marked 1,
2, 3, 4 on our plan) each of which was by no means small. Even with
this modification the magnificence of the original plan did not entirely
disappear. The two colossal lions opposite the door were very wide
apart, and all the openings between the various subdivisions were
large enough to allow the eye to range freely over the whole saloon,
and to grasp the first thought of the architect in its entirety.