Il contributo dei tre maestri e le implicazioni nel dibattito e nella prassi del restauro. Una vicenda emblematica in Italia meridionale

In the 1960s in the face of war destruction, the architectural restoration’ debate was back in vogue questioning the criteria hitherto based on philological and scientific restoration. In 1964 Venice hosted the confrontation between the leading exponents of the subject. In those years Italy boasted some important restoration personalities, including the founding fathers of the Venice Charter: P. Gazzola, R. Pane, C. Brandi. Investigating how individual sensitivities were integrated in the document, the paper proposes a comparative critical analysis inspired by one of the Charter’s statements: the importance of historical aspect. We examine how this admonition was translated in interventions with a specific focus on one Apulian church and its historical memory. With the conviction that the analysis of unpublished sources is a conscious restoration’s basis. The metaphor of an itinerary in time that reveals the monuments’ historical truth, the authentic text, is what Brandi was referring to.