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THE ITALIAN CONTEMPORARY MUSEOLOGICAL DEBATEDemo-Ethno-Anthropological 1 Museums and Local HeritageMariaclaudia Cristofano - ItalyI. IntroductionThe main aim of this paper is to introduce the fundamental features of the Italianmuseological debate which developed at the end of 1960s’ in the field ofanthropological studies. This debate was extremely important for Italy because, for thefirst time, it introduced and established a new concept of museum and a newconnection between the latter and the community and its historical and culturalheritage.The importance of such a debate was considerable from two points of views. On onehand it generated a new interest towards museology and museum. In particular thisinstitution began to be perceived not only as a building where art objects weredisplayed and preserved, but also as a place where heritage is put into context, andwhere objects, links and life-contexts related to the object can be disclosedOn the other hand, by calling the attention to “folkloric” objects – daily use objectswhich belonged to a peasant community and to a culture which is now extinct – thisdebate has contributed to extend value to the whole cultural heritage, and not only tothe so-called masterpieces and to rare and precious objects.Hence a new concept of museum arises, not only as the place for the celebration ofgreat events of “History” (the official History, with the capital “h”, that is narrated bygreat art masterpieces), but also a place where the many “histories” and local culturesthat characterize a territory are represented.II.a The spontaneous museographyIn Italy museums began to pay attention to local history and culture at the end of 1960sthanks to both the spreading of a “spontaneous museography”, born from the initiativeof passionate and nostalgic people, and the definition, by various academic groups, ofaccurate theoretical museographic principles. In Italy, from the mid 1950s severalcultural changes occurred as a consequence of the economic boom that swept overthe nation. In particular, the hope and the desire to pursue economical well-beingcaused a wide domestic emigration towards more industrialized areas of the country,and the subsequent abandon of the countryside and its century-old traditions. At theend, the Sixties emigration, cultural uprootedness and exile determined the rising ofnostalgia for this lost time. Particularly, people began to miss the direct relation with therural activities that, in spite of the hard work, guaranteed a strong connection betweendomestic life, community life and working life, which was completely lost in thefactories.In that period the awareness of lost memories brought many passionate people,fascinated by objects filled with simple knowledge and experience, to collect disusedthings that had belonged to people who had left their villages. During the Seventies1 The quite recent expression demo-ethno-anthropology nowadays is generally used in Italy to indicate aconcept broader than single ethnology or anthropology. The prefix demo- (that comes from the Latin worddemos and means people, population) refers to the study of “internal cultural gaps”, such as the study ofpeoples’ cultural heritage of the western world, and to “demology” (demologia), also called “history of folktradition” or folklore. The prefix ethno- refers to ethnology, a subject related to the study of “externalcultural gaps”, such as the study of non-European population, formerly called “primitive”. Cfr. Alberto M.Cirese, I beni demologici in Italia e la loro museografia in Pietro Clemente, Graffiti di museografia…, cit.,pp.249-250;197