Abstract

More than fifty years after the publication of the famous study by Garret Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, considered the starting point of the contemporary debate on Commons, the adoption of the Faro Convention gives new impetus to the question by promoting a perspective that recognizes a priority role for the community in the process of identifying, preserving and enhancing cultural heritage. Beyond the problems of definition and the uncertainties of application that the enactment of the national ratification law has generated, the investigation aims to verify whether the Convention outlines the legal conditions (principles, criteria and instruments) for enhancing cultural heritage as a common good. To this end, the argumentative path will focus on the perspective that considers culture and human knowledge as a new form of common resource and will focus on some experiences and applications of the Convention, from which a fruitful interaction with territorial redevelopment interventions has emerged, including interventions on cultural (material) assets in a state of decay or abandonment that tell the story of a community and a territory. The ultimate aim is to demonstrate that, while finding an area of immediate application to material goods, the ultimate aim of the Convention is to be found in the enhancement of the cultural immaterial, thus establishing the legal conditions for a unitary conception of the cultural heritage built around the concepts of recovery, protection and use.