Traces of Giambattista Vico’s thought in Niccolò Tommaseo’s idea of restoration
A progressive opening towards the possibility that the restoration intervention on a specific pre-existence
can consider it can appreciate the irregularities and transformations that have occurred over time,
compared to an ideal reference model, is already recorded in the Italian context around the middle of
the nineteenth century. An interpretation in this sense is in the definition reported in one of the most
important works published immediately after the unification of Italy, the
Dizionario della lingua italiana
by Niccolò Tommaseo.
Attention to the historical process – with the consequent conservation of the works of the past – develops
in Italy thanks to the new way of considering documentary sources (material and otherwise); these are no
longer perceived in isolation but as part of a system that allows us to grasp their genesis, developments and
connections, through the critical historical process inaugurated by G. B. Vico. Tommaseo acknowledges
this mutation of the term ‘restoration’ which seems to develop independently of the Anglo-Saxon
contributions.
The proximity of Tommaseo to Cesare Cantù, the figure who perhaps first of all collected and spread
the nascent thought, actively participating in the debate, is also documented by his contacts with the
protagonists of the architectural restoration of that era, including Boito.
