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The Italian Contemporary Museological Debate.
Demo-Ethno-Anthropological 1 Museums and Local
Heritage
I. Introduction
Mariaclaudia Cristofano 2 – Italy
The main aim of this paper is to introduce the fundamental features of the Italian museological
debate which developed at the end of 1960s’ in the field of anthropological studies. This debate
was extremely important for Italy because, for the first time, it introduced and established a new
concept of museum and a new connection between the latter and the community and its historical
and cultural heritage.
The importance of such a debate was considerable from two points of views. On one hand it
generated a new interest towards museology and museum. In particular this institution began to be
perceived not only as a building where art objects were displayed and preserved, but also as a
place where heritage is put into context, and where objects, links and life-contexts related to the
object can be disclosed.
On the other hand, by calling the attention to “folkloric” objects – daily use objects which belonged
to a peasant community and to a culture which is now extinct – this debate has contributed to
extend value to the whole cultural heritage, and not only to the so-called masterpieces and to rare
and precious objects.
Hence a new concept of museum arises, not only as the place for the celebration of great events of
“History” (the official History, with the capital “h”, that is narrated by great art masterpieces), but also
a place where the many “histories” and local cultures that characterize a territory are represented.
II.a The spontaneous museography
In Italy museums began to pay attention to local history and culture at the end of 1960s thanks to
both the spreading of a “spontaneous museography”, born from the initiative of passionate and
nostalgic people, and the definition, by various academic groups, of accurate theoretical
museographic principles. In Italy, from the mid 1950s several cultural changes occurred as a
consequence of the economic boom that swept over the nation. In particular, the hope and the
desire to pursue economical well-being caused a wide domestic emigration towards more
industrialized areas of the country, and the subsequent abandon of the countryside and its
century-old traditions. At the end, the Sixties emigration, cultural uprootedness and exile
determined the rising of nostalgia for this lost time. Particularly, people began to miss the direct
relation with the rural activities that, in spite of the hard work, guaranteed a strong connection
between domestic life, community life and working life, which was completely lost in the factories.
1 The quite recent expression demo-ethno-anthropology nowadays is generally used in Italy to indicate a concept
broader than single ethnology or anthropology. The prefix demo- (that comes from the Latin word demos and means
people, population) refers to the study of “internal cultural gaps”, such as the study of peoples’ cultural heritage of
the western world, and to “demology” (demologia), also called “history of folk tradition” or folklore. The prefix ethno-
refers to ethnology, a subject related to the study of “external cultural 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;
2 Mariaclaudia Cristofano: E-mail: idomena@tiscali.it; Address: Via Silvio Pellico 41-B, 00040 Pomezia (ROMA), ITALY
Institution: Museo Archeologico “Lavinium”, 00040 Pomezia (ROMA)
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