Integrated Cultural Heritage Enhancement

Activities to enhance cultural heritage are physiologically compatible with the patterns of consensual action. The «Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape» establishes specific rules on agreements, placing the interaction between public administration bodies and between public and private entities at the centre of the enhancement system. However, this legislation is partly unimplemented or misinterpreted. This is probably due to an originating misunderstanding, which confused the State’s obligation to protect and promote cultural heritage — to fulfil the principles enshrined in the Constitution — with the exclusive public exercise of these functions. Starting from the legislative framework, this article analyses the possible developments of the principle of consensus under the cultural heritage enhancement system and some of the most important implementation experiences undertaken to date, seeking to reconstruct them systematically.