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 follow one another with increasing frequency from the 16th century onward. But for such laws to have practical effect, knowledge of the material to be protected was necessary. The other Italian governments also issued, in past centuries, specific provisions in this regard.
In this sense it may be said that the government of the Venetian Republic was a precursor when, as early as 1773, on the initiative of Anton Maria Zanetti, it decreed that there be made, place by place, "an exact catalogue or inventory" of all paintings particularly worthy of public protection. Similarly, Pius VII in 1802, immediately after the French spoliations, in order to prevent even greater damage, gave orders that private owners of objects of art and antiquity make an exact declaration of them; and in 1819 in the Duchy of Lucca, Maria Luisa of Bourbon charged Michele Ridolfi with making an exact inventory of the most precious art objects. But only in 1820, with the famous edict of Cardinal Pacca, did this administrative service, for surveying and protecting the artistic heritage, come to have a logical organization in the Papal State. By it there is ordered "a most exact list" of the objects of antiquity and art existing in churches, oratories, convents, and in any establishment whether ecclesiastical or secular, establishing for exportation a special license and a duty corresponding to 20% of the value of the object. This is the most complete and carefully drafted papal law on the matter, and it has been, albeit with modifications, imitated by numerous other governments. To the same end, Italian legislation has taken care of 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 execution of the law of 20 June 1909), for the compilation of which the rules are established by the decree of 14 June 1932. The catalogue consists of a collection of record cards that must give exact knowledge of the object (movable or immovable, having historical, archaeological or artistic interest), not only from the inventory point of view, 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 territorially competent superintendent: the custodian who wishes to restore, remove, or alienate the object must request authorization from the Superintendency. For certain provinces the inventory cards of movable objects only have been published by the Ministry of Public Education, in a series of volumes entitled I. degli o. d'a. d'Italia (9 vols., Rome 1931 ff.). This series of inventories, as regards descriptive method, stands between the concise Elenco degli edifici monumentali (33 vols., Rome 1911 ff.) and the complete Catalogo delle cose d'arte e di antichità d'Italia (11 vols., Rome 1911 ff.).
Bibliography
Emma Zocca