Ruin, fragment, patina. Restoration and the bodily perception of the Ancient

The scientific discoveries on the human body’s cognitive abilities in the fields of neurology and neurobiology are also tracing the way to a new approach in the realm of architectural conservation, soliciting a reconsideration of the process of value assessment at the base of the Italian culture of restoration. Within this approach, three structural concepts structural concepts – ruin, fragment, and patina – represent the footprints of a specific propensity to rely on the role of the affective and bodily relationship to the witnesses of the past. This paper attempts to recompose the dis- course, following a historical narration and analysing the reasons of the very different attitudes reserved to the built heritage, accord- ing to age and conditions, paving the way to a more holistic vision of our approach to the memory of the past which could finally call back into play the bodily and affective faculties within the today’s extensive broadening of the realm of conservation to nearly every aspect of life on the planet.