The Heritage Building Process in the Val di Noto Unesco site

The Val di Noto towns rebuilt after the disastrous earthquake of 1693, entered the WHL in 2002. Although the late Baroque represents the main value of the site, the public discourse about the Unesco heritage has been characterized by a progressive shift from the scientific/academic discourse about the Baroque, built on the constant reference to the previous works of the historians, to a new discourse focused on the more indeterminate notion of "local identity". Such a shift found an important drive in the contents of the management plan of the site, committed to external "experts" and articulated around a rather flat and stereotyped representation of the "local communities" where monuments, festivals, practices, food, become "objects", icons, indifferently representing the local identity. The paper analyse the heritage building process, focusing on the effects of the admission in the Unesco Heritage and the connected risks.