ABSTRACT

With new developments in science and technology, and in philosophy and politics, the modern world society gradually emerged from the 'traditional society'. This chapter discusses the diversity of heritage, people-centred approaches to the recognition of heritage involving communities, the equivalence accorded to material and intangible cultural heritage, and the integrated approaches to cultural and natural values. The recognition and conservation of cultural heritage is fundamentally a cultural problem. In terms of ancient monuments, the Italian Renaissance marked a turning point. The period from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century marked many fundamental changes that founded the modern world, and the modern concepts of history and cultural heritage. The period was qualified as the age of enlightenment due to an intellectual movement of thought concerned with interrelated concepts of God, reason, nature and man. During the French Revolution, the properties of the church and the monuments that represented former sovereigns were conceived as symbols of past oppression, becoming targets of destruction.