La «pazienza della terra»: dai percorsi di dominio all’incontro nel cammino. Viaggio letterario nel diritto del patrimonio culturale

The conservation, protection and passing to future generations of the cultural heritage received from the past has known a huge increase in both national and international regulation since at least the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Currently, issues such as cultural property trafficking and the return and restitution of cultural objects illegally (or ‘unjustly’) taken away from their places of origin are of ever increasing relevance in the political and legislative agenda of many countries and international organizations. In this essay, we explore how a ‘Law and Literature’ – or, better, a ‘Justice and Literature’ – approach to cultural heritage law could benefit the ongoing debate, which involves, besides very complex legal issues, also deeply rooted and multifaceted symbolic implications of historical, political and socio-economical import and topicality. By discussing some relevant examples of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century travel literature and narrative, this article suggests the importance of ‘contextualization’ for a ‘just’ solution of conflicts arising from ‘crimes’ against cultural heritage, and how a more ‘narrative’ approach to said conflicts could pave the way for a successful application of alternative dispute resolution techniques and, more specifically, restorative justice programmes, to questions of repatriation of cultural objects.