D’ANGELO – The best result one can hope for is that it wiU succeed in favoring a 1m1re efficient CO-“Xistence between those who are occupied with taking care of the monuments and doing conservation, and the increment of attention and of energy towards preservation. It is not our aim lo auenuate the liveline’.lS of the debate but rather to maintain it constantly. Society seeks iL elf continually and variously in art, in culture, and in the environment. For this reason it is necessary to preserve that which is considered part of the patrimony, but without confusing conservation with conservatism, and favoring roscarch but without proposing a uniquo model or a unificat ion of points of view. Only by consenting to the continumion of culturnl pluralism, with respect to the historical I ifo of the work of art, of the monument and of the environment with relative st.ratifications, is it possible to avoid forced solutions, confusions, and impovcrishmenL.                                          Obviously these general principles must be gauged according to the diverse sectors and the various contexts to which they are applied. A painting is very different from a building, as the building is from n piaz1, or [ro111 u historical ccnl.er. Changes of scol.: can upset the best proposals Hnd many contradictions, evident in historicnl centers — as has been known for a long time — can no and must not be confronted with anything but a lot of pragmatism.We must forget those surrogate theories which, with the excu. e of increased modem sensibility, and with the enlargement of the umbits nnd sailc of conservation, hav.: pretended at all costs to deal “ith diverse scales and subjecL• through united dingnostics and therapies. ‘To be modem signifies loknow that which is no longer possible’,said Roland Barthes. Too often the expressive potential ities of works of art have been reduced lo a single poor reality which no longer allows them lo be snlvogcd either visually or mentally. If functitm cnn contribute to the survival of a work of a1t, above oil when this work hos been projected to function – as with n building, a book or o weapon — it can likewise determine its dem ise,when it is imposed on painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts, or nnyway wherever poor planning, is applied In historical centers, instead, the absence of function. is always fatol. We must confirm without uncertainty the prerogatives of the document and of its capacity as a witness which science,from one day to the nexl, can multiply by ten. Thanks to parochial archives with the history of two fami l ies, there has just been individuated the gene which, when it bocomes damaged, provokes Alzheime1’s disensc.Who knows what it will be possible to read in the future by cross-breeding old and new data. if we should hove tho wisdom to preserve the documentary sources…

CRUCIANI – Is that losay that historical instancies are to be privileged above aesthetic ones?

D’ANGELO – Believe that the question can no longer be posed in lheso tcm1s. Such un antithe. is belongs by now to the history of conservation nnd of rcstomtion but its true origin is found in an idealistic dialectical system that has been much too re-iterated. In the meantime let us clarify that works of art, fabrics or sites, once recognized as of relevant historical-artistic interest. be subjects lo be respected nnd in no woy should they become candidates for practical verifications of critical and theoretical hypotheses which by nature are neither stable nor universal.

CRUCIANI –  Arc you speaking of pure conscrvmion or of conservative restoration?

D’ANGELO – I would no longer speak of pure or impure conservation, nor of positions contrary or favorable to the co-e’.listence of the old with the new. but of a projcctual culture of conservation. The antagonism nnd the competition between ex”1reme hypotheses, beyond some brilliant linguistic syntheses, normally do not allow the most reasonable choices for the subject to be safegaurded, which always has its specific peculiarities . And then many fom1al hypotheses, aesthetic if you wish, today arc virtually verifiable, The most well known 11rchaeologicnl sites of Rome have been thus rcconstructed; in some wny they are visiblc nnd vinble, but who would venture to tnily reconstrucl them’?

CRUCIANI – It must be due to too much desb1.1ction but ofien one speaks of an identical reconstruction (l’identique). (1)

D’ANGELO – proceeding, from more simple works of maintenance to the more exciting exercises of anterior writing (2), one would benefit from reading Borses’ Pierre Menard, author of Quixote. A very brief story that allows for frequent re-reading.

CRUCIANI – What do you mean whc11 you speak of “a planned culture of conservation”; a professional keeping up to date, a scientific approach, or a theoretical study case by case?

D’ANGELO – No culture progresses without science. To improve the conservation of historical architecture for example, it is indispensable to develop diagnostics and consolidation. But conservation is not a science; its procedure can be made partially scientific through the experiments in the laboratory and on the site. The consciousness, the confrontation, the dialogue and the choices presuppose however a broad culture and co11duct based upon ethics. In order to conserve and preserve, a finnly ethical culture conceming lhe project for man is necessary, li’om the smallest artifact to the consb1.lcted and fomialized environment. The conservation project must not present an interventionist execution but a meditated proposal to maintain the work of art or Ute historical fabric alive for as long us possible, in hannony with its identity and, as much as possible, with the present if that contributes to its preservation. In view of continuity, and in dialectical relationship with history, theoretically the project can come to include the new just as much as it can plan for a simple maintenance ora 11non-intervention”. Casuistry with all its singularities is a fundumcntal reference but, chuncc nnd the lack of cullurnl and ethical presuppositions do not allow the fommlion of principles and rules, even if one speaks at limes of “case by case” approache. and methods. Jt would be as if one had to reinvent medical science at the manifestation of each new pall1ology. The specifics of each case instead sb·engll1cn the originality and lhe pragmatism of the pr ject and, byconscqwnce, its necessity.

(1) As it 

(2) (Rc)writing or (re)constructingll1c