The Villa del Casale of Piazza Armerina, Sicily. Challenges and Threats in the Management of a World Heritage Site

Thinking about the fate of our cultural heritage means to first reconsider the concept of heritage itself. The enlargement of the term to semantic territories increasingly wide has determined a growing difficulty to formulate a rigorous definition but it has also generated a refocusing not only on the patrimonial objects themselves but also on the attitudes of people towards them. Heritage may help to define and develop the sense of belonging and identity of local communities and to build a cultural and sustainable future of the territories. It can represent a real opportunity for the creation and enhancement of links between past and present and for obtaining a lasting balance amongst the principles of social equity, economic justice and ecological respect. At the base of this vision are UNESCO World Heritage Sites: key elements in the establishment of strategies for a people-centered development. This process starts from the recognition of the historical, cultural and environmental values of heritage: a process that needs to consider that it results from dynamic and relational processes. Accordingly, its preservation is a complex phenomenon to investigate in an active rather than a passive way. This paper focuses on the emblematic case of the Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina (Sicily), inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997, as a characteristic element of the whole territory, reflecting the cultural values of a rich and widespread stratigraphic history. It founds on the certainty that this site can really take the role of connector of the local values attributed to him by the prestigious international label. Starting from the critical analyses of its management plan, it intends to underline the many challenges, which all the actors involved in its supervision have to face and debate about potential improvement that could overcome some criticalities related to its state of conservation and other threats to its outstanding universal value.