Ricerc@Sapienza

Abstract
The preservation policies of historic centres have distant roots. From the Venice Charter of 1964, the Amsterdam Declaration of 1975, to the document signed in Washington in 1987 and its review by the ICOMOS CIVVIH Committee in 2011, the culture of restoration has progressively expanded the boundaries of the cultural heritage to be protected. Recently challenges around the existing city have gradually faded and the focus on historic centres has gradually lost vigour, although their conservation has become increasingly problematic. Today we hear more often about urban regeneration, but restoration can represent more than in the past, the real tool for the care of historical fabrics, as this discipline bases the project on a deep knowledge of the functional, structural and formal data of every urban reality without excluding the surrounding environment in all its aspects. The conversion of many small abandoned historical centres in the Italian mountain hinterland into widespread hotels represents a system of valorisation, but does not exhaust the conservative needs of these urban core. Just as compatible use does not cover the full breadth of the concept of "integrated conservation". This, if correctly interpreted, could, instead, represent the key to the management of the territory through the planning of a design process in which restoration is a means of mediation between the economic, social and cultural needs of a site.
Keywords: small historical centres, urban regeneration, integrated conservation.