A "complete" preservation. Giovanni Romano and the case of Piedmont

The cultural climate, historical-artistic studies and the set of territorial reconnaissance initiatives carried out from the mid-1970s onwards in Piedmont are an emblematic case of a particular historiographical and historical-artistic season that did not conceal, indeed, claimed political responsibility for research in dialogue with institutions and community instances. Art-historical research developed in a context of renewed interest in the preservation of heritage, indeed, they constituted strong episodes of a fierce protection that Giovanni Romano embodied for a not short period: through the most up-to-date research, protection acted as a driving force and as an attractor for the convergence of different skills in the human sciences. Piedmont responded to the needs of conservation with a methodological proposal that developed a particular interest in the knowledge of the context, both territorial and urban, within which the analysis of the objects had to be concentrated, thus rescued from their isolation.