Il Tempietto Longobardo nell Ottocento

The text analyzes in detail, also based on unpublished archival sources, the studies and restorations of the Longobard Temple of Cividale performed during the nineteenth century. This is a small religious building that preserves important Longobard stucco decorations dating to the eighth century AD, which was studied and made known in Italy and Europe thanks to several French scholars in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1860 was restorated thanks to the Austrian Central Commission for monument conservation with the involvement of the Academy of Venice. The restoration followed an approach aimed at the conservation of the monument in its entirety, respecting the additions and modifications which had suffered over time, both in the matter, both in form, without "expect to return it intact and restored to one or other of various ages" These principles are hardly reflected in the Italian culture of the mid-nineteenth century and may have been inspired by the Austrian or the French scholars of architecture and archeology of the early nineteenth century. In a period characterized by so-called 'stylistic restoration' are discovered, unexpectedly, the first stirrings of the culture of conservation which will be defined in Italy in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and gradually refined to this day.