Antico e nuovo nel dibattito tra Ferdinando Forlati e Gustavo Giovannoni. Metodi di restauro moderni, nuovi e nuovissimi (1938, 1964, 1975)

On the occasion of the third National Conference on the History of Architecture, held in Rome in October 1938, at the end of the contribution presented by Forlati Modern art and today’s technique in monumental restoration, published in the proceedings, appears the reference to a «wide discussion in which many of the participants took part, in particular prof. Giovannoni». The echo of that debate will return several times, in the later Forlati’s writings: in 1964 in Modern and ultra-modern methods for monumental restoration and again in 1975, in the volume The Basilica of San Marco through its restoration.
Giovannoni’s criticisms related to Forlati’s «modernist» choices are proudly recalled by Forlati almost forty years later, in defense of his own work, despite events such as 2nd World War and reconstruction processes, changes in legislation, and, not least, Giovannoni’s death in 1947. The Forlati’s revenge, as can be seen from his writings, matches with the date of the Charter of Venice itself and allows us to define the implications it had to determine.