On the Ethics of Cultural Heritage Conservation

On the Ethics of Cultural Heritage Conservation is a collection of texts, including previously published papers, original texts based on lectures delivered by the author between 2009 and 2018, and several pieces written solely for this publication.

The texts that derive from lectures reflect the lecturer’s original ideas and arguments, but the nature of a lecture, especially one based on the kind of visual clues and examples that are employed in PowerPoint-based lectures, cannot be accurately reflected in a written text. As a result, the texts presented here necessarily differ from the lectures on which they are based. The previously published texts have also been revised to a greater or lesser extent, especially those originally published in French, Italian or Spanish and now translated into English.

While these papers and lectures were not conceived as part of a whole, they have been collected here because they all share a common thread: some core notion (some principle) of conservation is discussed and analysed. When taken together, they offer a more or less coherent picture which, put simply, shows that many of the conceptual tenets of conservation are not what they may seem at first sight. Indeed, analysis of these principles may serve to reveal that while the conservation of cultural heritage is a well-established activity in developed societies – one that works and in nearly every case successfully serves its purpose – its traditional discourse (its rationale, its notions, its principles) may benefit from a reinterpretation or from some refinement. In addition, it hints that the current cultural and technical circumstances might make necessary a shift in the way the activity (and the profession) is currently understood.