The Relationship Between History and Conservation: foundations for a future field

Peter N. Miller, President of the American Academy in Rome

The lecture explores the relationship between conservation of cultural heritage and historical scholarship, two fields that, despite sharing deep roots, have rarely engaged in genuine dialogue. Conservation acquired the features of a structured discipline only in the twentieth century, shaped primarily by the demands of practice and treatment; history, by contrast, has been a central liberal art since antiquity, defined in its modern academic form by the primacy of the question, the Fragestellung. Miller proposes an alternative framework, conceiving conservation as a form of historical inquiry, and history as a practice of conservation. To achieve this, he traces the origins of both disciplines to early modern antiquarianism, finding a common foundation that points towards a more integrated conception of the two fields.

La Normale delle Idee | 25th March 2026 | Sala Azzurra”