Preventive and planned conservation for Cultural Heritage in Abruzzo

The earthquake in Central Italy is the most dramatic event in 2016 because it destroyed churches, church, buildings and more of cultural heritage. Umbria end Marche are severely damaged.

In Abruzzo most of the churches are now closed end it’s strictly forbidden to enter because it’s very dangerous.

In Loreto Aprutino, near Pescara, it is very famous the fresco of “Giudizio Universale”. It is one of the most important gothic painting in Abruzzo; it is in the church of Santa Maria in Piano .

Today it is opened a new debate about preventive and preservative conservation, the so called planned conservation, about the precept of economic reason. In particular the objective is not the restoration or the monitoring of the art work.

Planned conservation is an innovative procedure, stepping from restoration as event, to preservation as long-term process. It is something more than maintenance and monitoring: it is a rather complex strategy, merging a large scale reduction of risks and a careful organization of daily activities. Implementing planned conservation, therefore, is something more effective than implementing maintenance: it means setting a totally new scenario, posing questions about strategies and links between preservation activities and local development processes.

In fact planned conservation is an attempt to go beyond the basic statement that the Heritage  counts because of its impact on economy of tourism. The methodology focuses on external benefits of conservation processes. If human capital becomes an interesting parameter to evaluate an economy, conservation counts because of its impact on capability to doubt, to learn, to innovate: in other words, focus shifts from heritage, as a given asset, to conservation processes as opportunities to increase intellectual capital.