Finding funds, finding roles: heritage and arts financing

Preservation of built heritage is a necessary but not sufficient condition for its exploitation and for value creation at the local level. In spite of the efforts of cultural policies aiming at heritage preservation, no social, symbolic or economic value can be created, unless a mobilization of resources takes place from a variety of increasingly specialised actors, who play a delicate intermediation role. Based on the analysis of all investments related to the built heritage in three Italian regions by sovranational, national, local and private actors between 2001 and 2005, the paper explores to what extent funding the arts can be an explicit form of cultural policy, even if it is carried by private institutions and what can be the role attributed to different funding actors to build the delicate connection between heritage preservation and sustainable development at local level