Cultural heritage: ENEA special online with key actors and solutions for restoration and development

“Culture plays a critical role in the NRRP (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), demonstrating its rediscovered centrality. Investing in culture is a great lever of our economic policy, it’s a fundamental fact that ensures that we will continue along this path in the coming years, guaranteeing culture the resources it needs to become the fulcrum of Italy's sustainable growth and job creation”. These are the words of Culture Minister Dario Franceschini in an interview for the new issue of the ENEA Energia Ambiente e Innovazione magazineEnergia Ambiente e Innovazionenew issue of the ENEA Energia Ambiente e Innovazione magazine entitled “Science, Technology, Research: the great Alliance for Art” and published for the International Restoration Exhibition in Ferrara (8-10 June 2022).

The magazine also features interviews with the president of the Lazio Region, Nicola Zingaretti, and the director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, as well as contributions from leading figures in the sector such as the director of the Central Institute for Restoration, Alessandra Marino, the president of Lazio Innova, Nicola Tasco, the president of the DTC Lazio Centre of Excellence, Maria Sabrina Sarto, the director of the Observatory of Digital Innovation in Cultural Heritage and Assets of Milan Polytechnic, Eleonora Lorenzini, and the president of the international association #DiCultHer, Carmine Marinucci.

The topics discussed include investments, the role of the NRRP and the contribution of research and innovation to the revitalisation of the cultural heritage sector, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. “Not only can the NRRP provide some needed oxygen, but it must also provide a strong boost to this sector”, affirmed ENEA president Gilberto Dialuce. “As a public research institution, on the protection and development front we can contribute by providing companies and the government with highly qualified and diversified technical-scientific expertise and skills”, added Dialuce.

The available solutions are described by the agency's researchers in more than 20 analyses of infrastructures, projects, software platforms, methodological approaches and advanced technologies, such as laser scanners for “investigating” the health of works of art, hi-tech sensors for analysing and monitoring the vulnerability of bridges and viaducts of historical-artistic interest (e.g. the Bridge of Towers in Spoleto), bio-based products and micro-organisms for the bio-restoration of the statues in the Vatican Gardens or Michelangelo's marbles in Florence, technologies to reconstruct works of art with limited access in 3D and make them accessible to a broader public, plinths to protect the Riace Bronzes from earthquakes and an anti-vibration platform to reduce the effects of traffic on the Sarcophagus of the Spouses, one of the greatest masterpieces of Etruscan art.

The agency's activities also include solutions for the deterioration of artefacts, nanotechnology, ICT infrastructure and vibration tables for seismic risk assessment, robotics, neutronic techniques and decision support systems as well as energy efficiency measures.

The magazine also illustrates the technologies and solutions available from ENEA through the https://www.eai.enea.it/ dedicated to enterprises.

For more information:

The complete issue of EAI “Science, Technology, Research: The Grand Alliance for Art”