Loss, Compensation, and Authenticity: The Contribution of Cesare Brandi to Architectural Conservation in America

International consideration of the contribution of Cesare Brandi to modern conservation theory has been needed for a very long time. In the realm of conservation discourse in America and probably for much of the English-speaking world, Brandi's words and concepts have been largely absent and, if acknowledged at all, often lost to translation. This can be attributed to the lack of an English version of his 1963 Teoria del Restauro [Theory of Restoration] until the first excerpts were published in 1996, with an accompanying editorial, in the Getty Conservation Institute's anthology of readings on conservation. That is not to say that Brandi's ideas were unknown, at least to some architectural conservation professionals and academics in the United States who encountered his theories through the lectures and translated excerpts of his writings at ICCROM, by its then Director-General, Paul Philippot.