Association of the International Private Committees for the Safeguarding of Venice

Venice, Italy 

EU Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award 2018

 

The World for Venice and its Heritage, for More Than 50 Years

 

 

On November 4, 1966, Northern Italy was hit by a terrible bad weather: a toll in human lives was paid in some areas of the country; the Arno river flooded Florence and the aqua alta kept Venice flooded much more than the usual 6 hours it does when it happens.

The then Director General of UNESCO, René Maheu, launched an appeal on December 2 which opened the International Campaign for Venice and Florence and called upon the entire world to prove its solidarity towards the two Italian cities saying, among other things: “I address a solemn appeal to the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind for the preservation and restoration of the damaged cultural treasures of Florence and Venice.”

The world’s mobilisation was unprecedented, first for Florence where the Italian Art and Archives Rescue Fund (UK) and the Committee to rescue Italian Art (USA) started working thanks to the involvement of their “founding fathers”: Sir Ashley Clarke, a former UK Ambassador to Italy, and Colonel Gray, who had participated in the liberation of Italy with the US Army.

They first focussed on Florence and with many young people coming from all over the world they were called “the angels of mud” and rescued mostly archival documents. At a certain point the emergency in Florence was over but Francesco Valcanover, who was then in charge of the safeguarding of Venetian monuments, met Sir Ashley Clarke and told him that the emergency was not over in Venice and asked them if they could move to Venice.

 

 

This is how everything started: some 50 Committees were created around the world to preserve Venice and funded laboratories, researches, restorations of architectural heritage and of works of art of any type, grants for students from all over the world (also in collaboration with ICCROM) were also awarded.

The UNESCO campaign became a Joint Programme between the UN Agency and the Private Committees in which three different partners collaborated with different roles: the individual Private Committees (supported in every and any step by the Association’s Permanent Office) funded projects that were indicated by the local institutions of the Italian Ministry for Culture (called “Soprintendenze”) according to the needs of each work of art, its budget and location and connection with individual Committees. UNESCO granted administrative support and the surveillance of the international community on how the privately raised funds were spent.

The Joint programme with UNESCO came to an end in the 10’s of this century, for economic reasons, but the Committees continue spending between 5-6 million € per year for Venice, creating also a virtuous circle, since restorations and projects usually involve local firms, restorers, professionals, who have the opportunity to work in Venice and then also to live in Venice, thus keeping the city alive, thus contributing to contrast mass tourism that is deeply modifying the city and its lagoon.

 

Two of its members train young people to become restorers and give them the opportunity of working in the framework of actual projects, another one focusses on the dissemination of the appreciation of museums to school children and also to senior citizens; two of them are concentrated on cultural researches and the organisation of meetings to disseminate the knowledge acquired by means of such researches, the others mostly finance restorations, publications about restorations and artists, exhibitions, in collaboration with local, national and international institutions.

So far more than some 1,000 different projects have been financed by the Committees, who sometimes join forces if the project is particularly demanding and also if they share some interest for this particular work of art.

Most of the funding is private, apart from the financial support received by the Fondazione svizzera Pro Venezia, which also comes from the Swiss government and the Canton Ticino (the Italian speaking Canton).

The Association also try to raise awareness on the daily problems of the city by issuing Recommendations that are sent to the public authorities and to the press, and to support some locally initiated initiatives.

The list of projects is available on the Association’s website.

The current list of the members of the Association – from 11 different countries -  (in alphabetical order) is:

Country	Name of the Committee	Website
United States of America	America-Italy Society of Philadelphia	www.aisphila.org
Italy	Associazione Amici dei Musei e Monumenti Veneziani	www.amicideimuseivenezia.it
Italy	Associazione Cavalieri di San Marco	www.cavalieridisanmarco.it
Austria	Comitato Austriaco per la Salvaguardia di Venezia “Venedig lebt”	www.venedig-lebt.at
Japan	Comitato giapponese Venezia aVvenire	www.venezia.is-mine.net
France	Comité Français pour la Sauvegarde de Venise	www.cfsvenise.com
Italy	Comunità Ebraica di Venezia	www.jvenice.org
Germany	Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venedig/Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani	www.dszv.it
Switzerland	Fondazione Svizzera Pro Venezia	www.provenezia.ch
Italy	Istituto Veneto per i Beni Culturali	www.ivbc.it
Italy	Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti	www.istitutoveneto.it
Denmark	Pro Veneziakomitéen Denmark	www.provenezia.dk
Sweden	Pro Venezia Sweden	www.provenezia.se
United States of America	Save Venice Inc.	www.savevenice.org
The Netherlands	Stichting Nederlands Venetië Comité	www.poortersvanvenetie.nl
United Kingdom	The Venice in Peril Fund	www.veniceinperil.org
Italy	Università Internazionale dell’Arte (UIA)	www.new.univarte.it
Italy/ United States of America	Venetian Heritage	www.venetianheritage.org
Italy	Venice Gardens Foundation	www.venicegardensfoundation.org
United States of America	World Monuments Fund	www.wmf.org