Protection and culture of the restoration in Bologna during the “Commissioni Ausiliarie” period
Resuming the studies on culture and the origins of the restoration in Bologna, after the studies from the
1980’s on restoration in the post Italian Unification era, helped in opening more innovative and wider
research prospectives. Not only did all this work promote the exceeding of the limits of critical judgment
restricted to the urban context alone, it also enlarged significantly the chronological period of reference.
New historiographical and documentary elements – characteristic of restoration discipline – were added
in order to understand the main salient facts from the issuing of Cardinal Pacca’s Edict on 7 April 1820,
up to 1859 and from the Unification of Italy until 1915. The research was carried out following two
main themes: the first one focused on the protection by the Papal State, the second one focused on the
slow process of forming a sensitivity, a cultural interest in ancient things by customers and designers and
an aptitude for restoration that can be outlined through the reconstruction of the local framework of
restoration interventions and the results achieved on an operational level.
