Rai5, on Art Night an episode entirely dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage

Cultural heritage protection will be discussed in the episode of Art Night to be aired on Rai 5 this evening, Friday, April 15, at 9:15 p.m. “It may be because we have grown up in contact with one of the greatest cultural heritages in the world, it is inevitable that Italians are the most daring defenders of heritage, so that they are called from every corner of the planet to save endangered works of art,” host Neri Marcorè tells in the opening of this episode.

The episode opens with the documentary Custodi della memoria. The Italian way to heritage protection, by Emanuela Avallone, Linda Tugnoli and Silvia De Felice. The documentary is an original Rai Cultura production and aims to bear witness to the important Italian presence in the world on the front of protection, conservation and restoration of cultural heritage: the Italian way to the protection of art, in the certainty that cultural heritage is the heritage of all humanity. With the historic signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in Rome on February 16, 2016, Italy became the first country in the world to establish and make available to UNESCO the Blue Helmets of Culture. To show the most authentic spirit of the Blue Helmets, the documentary recounts the mission to Croatia in January 2021, which saw TPC Carabinieri working side by side with art historians and restorers from MIBAC, coordinated by Commander Roberto Riccardi and Engineer Paolo Iannelli.

Our country has acquired extensive experience in the field of cultural heritage protection not only in Italy, due to the vastness of that heritage and the many critical issues arising from calamitous events but, thanks to that experience, also abroad. In fact, the team has carried out missions in Lebanon (explosion that shook the capital Beirut in October 2020), in Albania (as a result of the earthquake events of the earthquake that struck the country in January 2020) and in 2017 in Mexico, as recounted by architect Pierluigi Salvati, restorers Luciana Festa and Paolo Scarpitti, photographer Pino Zicarelli and TPC carabinieri Luigi Spadari and Lanfranco Disibio. In this field, Italy has one of its cultural primacies: today the Italian approach to restoration is accepted all over the world, as director Alessandra Marino, archaeologist Maria Concetta Laurenti and architect Claudio Prosperi, protagonists of important restorations after the destruction of Palmyra by Daesh in China and in the fortified citadel of Bam in Iran, tell us at the Central Institute for Restoration.

The excellence of Italian restoration has also traveled the world thanks to the courage and passion of individuals, as well as the commitment of institutions: Carlo Giantomassi with his wife Donatella Zari have made an important contribution during risky missions abroad. ICCROM, a UNESCO body has also chosen Rome as its headquarters since its founding in 1956 precisely because of our tradition in restoration, as Valerie Magar recounts, and continues its work around the world to safeguard tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

Art Night continues with Flowers on Canvas by Emanuela Avallone and Silvia De Felice, directed by Monica Madrisan. In 1943 the German army deceptively emptied some secret deposits in the Tuscan countryside, taking away about 50 crates: they contained some of the most precious works of our heritage, which the officials of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence had hidden to avoid bombing damage. In 1945 the Allied army recovered the works in Val Passiria and brought them back to Florence. All but nine works were lost. Among them is Jan van Huysum’s Vase of Flowers, a painting of exceptional historical and artistic value. The documentary reconstructs the complex investigation, the delicate dialogue of international diplomacy, standoff moments and twists and turns. It features the director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt; Lt. Col. Lanfranco Disibio, who led the last years of the investigation as commander of the Nucleo Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale in Florence; former Italian Ambassador to Berlin Luigi Mattiolo; Passiria Museum curator Judith Schwarz; and historian Isabella Insolvibile.

Art Night, hosted by Neri Marcorè, is a program by Silvia De Felice and Emanuela Avallone, Massimo Favia, Alessandro Rossi, with direction by Andrea Montemaggiori.

Rai5, on Art Night an episode entirely dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage

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