INVENTORIES OF ART OBJECTS. — The protection of the artistic heritage is currently the concern of all governments; in the past, the Papal government in particular sought to prevent the exportation of objects of antiquity and art, including those in private ownership; bulls and chirographs issued for this purpose became increasingly frequent from the sixteenth century onward. But for such laws to have practical efficacy, knowledge of the material to be protected was necessary. The other Italian governments, too, issued particular provisions on the matter in past centuries.
In this sense, the government of the Venetian Republic may be said to have been a precursor when, as early as 1773, on the initiative of Anton Maria Zanetti, it established that, place by place, “an exact catalogue or inventory” should be made of all paintings particularly deserving of public protection. Similarly, in 1802, immediately after the French spoliations, Pius VII, in order to prevent still greater damage, ordered private owners of objects of art and antiquity to make an exact declaration of them; and in 1819, in the Duchy of Lucca, Maria Luisa di Borbone commissioned Michele Ridolfi to make an exact i. of the most precious o. d’a. But only in 1820, with the famous edict of Cardinal Pacca, did this administrative service, intended to survey and protect the artistic heritage, acquire a logical organization in the Papal States. It ordered “a most exact list” of the objects of antiquity and art existing in churches, oratories, convents, and any institution, whether ecclesiastical or secular, while establishing for exportation a special licence and a duty corresponding to 20% of the object’s value. This is the most complete and carefully selected Papal law on the subject, and, with modifications, it was imitated by numerous other governments. For the same purpose, Italian legislation provided for the inventory catalogue of things of antiquity and art (art. 23 of the law of 2 June 1902; art. 27 of the regulation for the implementation of the law of 20 June 1909), for whose compilation the rules were established by the decree of 14 June 1932. The catalogue consists of a collection of cards that must provide exact information about the object (movable or immovable, and of historical, archaeological, or artistic interest), not only from the inventory standpoint but also from the scientific one; each card, drawn up in triplicate, must be signed by the custodian of the object itself and by the superintendent with territorial jurisdiction: the custodian wishing to restore, remove, or alienate the object must request authorization from the Superintendency. For some provinces, the inventory cards for movable objects alone were published by the Ministry of Public Instruction in a series of volumes entitled I. degli o. d'a. d'Italia (9 vols., Roma 1931 sgg.). As regards descriptive method, this series of i. stands between the concise Elenco degli edifici monumentali (33 vols., Roma 1911 sgg.) and the complete Catalogo delle cose d'arte e di antichità d'Italia (11 vols., Roma 1911 sgg.).
#### INVENTARIO, BENEFICIO DI: V. ACCESSIONE.