Preface

On April 12 1882, “The Times” published a letter to the editor signed by the British Pre-Raphaelite painter, craftsman and writer, William Morris. Under the title “Vandalism in Italy” the letter denounced the “ignorant system of so called ‘restoration’” followed by the Italian government and local authorities in treating their country's “priceless relics of art in its various forms”. Speaking of several ancient churches ‘remodelled’ or even pulled down in Milan, Morris argued that

“the /State/ Commission for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments and the /local/ Academies of Fine Arts have been committing the worst acts of vandalism – a fact that makes it difficult or impossible for any private Italian to get a hearing when he protests /…/ as one link after another in the history of art is cut away to feed the vanity of some modern designer or the greed of some contractors eager for a job”.

Quote in Elisabetta COLOMBO, Come si governava Milano. Politiche pubbliche nel secondo Ottocento, Milano, Angeli, 2005, p. 116.

The episode testifies to the fact that if Italy is today the country with the highest number of sites included in the Unesco World Heritage List, it is not entirely the merit of its governments' preservation policies – and indeed it may well be in spite of those policies and of their ineptness.

But that episode is by far more telling, as it presents in essence many of the themes and issues addressed by this book. First and principally, it informs us about the existence in the late 19^th century of governmental agencies, both national and local, entrusted with the preservation of cultural heritage properties. Secondly, that letter, making reference to those “priceless relics” as a “link” to history, echoed a discourse which has been crucial to the support and the design of preservation policies ever since. Thirdly, Morris evoked two permanent counterparts to those policies: the “modern designer” and the “contractor”, pictured – not surprisingly in the words of a Pre-Raphaelite – as entirely negative characters. Fourthly, the unheard “private” citizen is mentioned in the quotation: the ancestor of a host of individuals and associations, increasingly active in subsequent decades (when they certainly became more successful in gaining attention from the competent authorities and in encouraging discussions and initiatives about natural and cultural heritage). Lastly, that letter, sent to the editor of the most reputed British newspaper but relating to events taking place in Italy, bears evidence of the cosmopolitan concern raised by the issue of preservation over a century ago: the embryo of such international actions as the “Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage” promoted by Unesco ninety years later.

The five elements listed above – governmental authorities, public discourse, corporate and market interests, citizens' associations, international agencies – may help in figuring out the complex and challenging purpose of the research work presented in this volume which is nothing less than the history of the governance of cultural and natural heritage in eleven countries, from its outset to the present. Let me try to say briefly why the adjectives “complex” and “challenging” are not used here as an empty tribute to conventional rules observed in a preface.

Speaking about governance is challenging per se. The term has been vastly used and misused.

For a recent assessment on the use of the concept, see Tony BOVAIRD, Public governance: balancing stakeholder power in a network society, in International Review of Administrative Sciences, vol. 71, 2005, pp. 217–228.

But today, when the feverish popularity of the concept is probably in decline, we rest with one solid conviction at least: that social, economic, cultural, institutional processes are governed not only through government (be it national or local) with its legislative, administrative, jurisdictional mechanisms, but through a larger array of different actors and factors. They include schools and universities, citizens' associations, public opinion, economic corporations, non-governmental organisations, learned societies, unions, media, international agencies, clubs, consultants etc. In fact, the reader is going to meet quite a few of these actors in the following pages; they are the unavoidable characters involved in the story we set out to tell.

Writing on the history of the preservation policies is no less demanding. Indeed it was confusing at first. Cultural heritage has intrinsically to do with history; but the concept of what belongs to history, of what is worth including in the heritage of a region, of a nation, of humanity has been changing over time. Thus we had to trace a twofold history: the one concerning the changes that occurred in preservation policies; and the other concerning the changes that occurred in concepts of what needed be preserved – the two orders of changes being considerably intertwined. The history of institutional and societal arrangements, familiar to the administrative historian, had to be blended with other matters closer to a field like cultural studies.

Under such premises the comparative work that is distinctive to this study proved particularly laborious. Not only different governmental traditions had to be taken into account, but also different and sometimes multifarious cultural contexts had to be considered. The “heritage” to be protected could be natural or cultural (in as far as the two adjectives are dichotomous); it could be local or sub-national or international according to the history of the different countries – the “heritage” of the one often being a taboo event to the other. The comparative report that closes this volume draws the conclusions of a punctilious exercise undertaken at the very beginning of the research to establish the “what” and “how” of the comparison.

In having brought to conclusion such work, the Project Group may find some reason for satisfaction. The readers – whether academic, professional, or general – will decide if this satisfaction is grounded and to what extent. I believe however that they will easily acknowledge the wealth of information offered by the reports and the effort to frame that information into a reasonable interpretative fabric. For the rest, history must be praised for its extraordinary provision of models, suggestions, explanation, inspiration. In this light, public administration and management as practical enterprises and scientific fields cannot but rest upon a firm and precise knowledge of the past, if they do not want to fall prey to deceptive managerial fashions or false administrative gospels, if they do not want to play blind man's buff when they are trying to make sense of their tasks and resources.

The participation of all rapporteurs has been important; but Stefan Fisch, as general rapporteur, has played a special role: with his multidisciplinary scholarship and his mastery of different languages (that entails familiarity with different cultural heritages), he has provided the Project Group with leadership and guidance. Gail Darge, the IIAS Project Group Coordinator, has managed the Group skilfully and patiently: I am sure to express the opinion of each and every participant in the Project Group when I say that her task could not have been better accomplished.

This volume is the 9^th “Cahiers d'Histoire de l'Administration”, published by the IIAS. The previous volumes were the product of a permanent Working Group on Administrative History, set up in 1982 and subsequently chaired by André Molitor (1982–1991), Louis Fougère (1991–1992), Vincent Wright (1993–1999) and myself. The Working Group has been internationally recognized as a laboratory on administrative history;

Vincent WRIGHT, Il gruppo di lavoro sulla “storia dell'amministrazione” dell'IISA, in Storia Amministrazione Costituzione, Bologna, il Mulino, 1995, pp. 311–314; Klaus-Gert LUTTERBECK, The “Cahiers d'Histoire de l'Administration” of the “International Institute of Administrative Sciences” in Brussels, in “Jahrbuch fuer Europaeische Verwaltungsgeschichte”, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2005, pp. 327–349.

and it is appropriate to recall here its contribution and to thank the IIAS for having established and supported it. I also express my personal gratitude for having had the privilege of chairing the Working Group as well as the Project Group that produced this book. It has been an exciting and rewarding engagement.

Project Groups as ad hoc teams of scholars summoned to develop a specific subject replaced the permanent Working Group on Administrative History in 2005. That did not mark a discontinuity in the interest of the IIAS in this field of study. The ordinal number 9 written on the front page of this book indicates that the series of the Cahiers d'Histoire, initiated in 1984, will continue; as many as six volumes of the series have been published in a little more than a decade, from 1995 to 2007. In the meantime, some of the participants in the Project Group that produced this book also produced another book on the history of IIAS, on the occasion of its seventy-fifth anniversary; and a new Project Group is already at work on a new topic.

This is why, in the vein of the subject treated in this volume, I am encouraged to consider administrative history like a part of the cultural heritage of IIAS and – therefore – of the whole scholarly and professional community dealing with Public Administration (with and without capital letters). And I am confidant that administrative history as a ‘site’ of knowledge worthy of being protected will find in IIAS its Unesco.