RIGHT TO COLLECTORSHIP

"The ownership of cultural goods may well be private... whereas the cultural value of the goods is public."
 
This principle, outlined by Prof. Mario Trapani, is the starting point of this site. For decades, the various criteria used to read and interpret Articles 3 and 9 of the Constitution have given rise to a debate on the public/private relationship in relation to the management and enhancement of cultural heritage. This debate is at times unnecessary, self-referential, and obsolete because it is based on ideological schemes, and therefore prejudices, which in the end have to be reckoned with - and this is impossible! - between reality and abstract ideological design.
 
Ours is a time where private individuals must demand the recognition of their own constitutional and social rights for the promotion and development of culture in reaction to their current confined, residual role, which is so poorly supported by the Administration of Cultural Heritage, as if they had been found guilty of abusing such cultural goods.
There are many experts, traders, specialized companies, auction houses, collectors of antiquities, associations, and scholars who research and publish the fruit of this 'wicked' passion of theirs: cultural collecting.

If Italy were not able to understand, welcome and protect private collections of archaeological, numismatic, palaeontological, books and other antiquities, it would deny its own ancient as well as recent history.
It would deny that the public collections, the museums, the libraries, the collections that today constitute the cultural heritage of the country were born from private collecting initiatives.
Moreover, a country that denies its history does not represent a civilised nation. These are not the ideological schemes to adopt in order to 'read' reality. It is simply a matter of recognizing what has been, still is, and continues to take place in line with a cultivated Italian humanistic and scientific tradition, the current existence of collectors of cultural goods. Furthermore, their contribution to the knowledge and development of culture continues to be beneficial.
Indeed, in Italy there are collectors and owners of archaeological, palaeontological, prehistoric and early civilized goods; of numismatics; of book collections, of books and ancient maps; of historical objects, of literature, of art, of science and technology; of manuscripts, of autographs, of maps, of incunabula, of prints, of engravings, of maps and of scores; of photographs and of films; of tables and of paintings, of sculptures, of antiques and of other antiquities.


Despite the new period evoked with clarity and wisdom by the President of the National Council of Cultural Heritage, Prof. Giuliano Volpe, in my practice as an expert lawyer on cultural heritage law I still encounter too many cases in which the Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Police Forces still present collectors as receiver of stolen goods, dealers of illegal art, and grave robbers.
A protection of the 'Right to Collectorship' that is not being taught but that is conquered and practiced every day by many lawyers, as by me, is required.
This website is dedicated to the promotion and defence of this 'Right to Collectorship'.