Toponymy Between Cultural Heritage and Public Use of History

The definition of cultural heritage, linked to the themes of public memory, human rights and democracy, as established by the Faro Convention, makes it possible to look at toponymy as a strategic resource for the formation of the heritage community. Toponymy draws and names the contours of heritage by making visible the stratification of the past. Around this resource is structured the nexus between local and nation, between small homelands and large homelands, between civic religion and civil religion in a relationship of mutual influence. However, administrative control exposes toponymy to the political use of the local ruling classes. Therefore, two cases of public use are presented - through the public memory of the figures of Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer -, using institutional and open source digital databases, to put the patrimonial value of toponymy to the test of historical research.