The Department of Cultural Heritage was created last February on the basis of the new statute adopted by the University of Salento following the law on university reform known as the Gelmini legislation (240/2010). The scientific disciplines that the statute places under direct responsibility of the Department are those listed under L-ANT, that regard antiquity in a broad sense, from prehistory and protohistory (L-ANT/01) to classical (L-ANT/07) and medieval (L-ANT/08) archaeology, from Greek (L-ANT/02) and Roman (L-ANT/03) history to Etruscology (L-ANT/06), numismatics (L-ANT/04), topography (L-ANT/09) and methodology for archaeological research (L-ANT/10), as well as the disciplines listed under L-ART, the vast field of art history, subdivided both chronologically, into medieval (L-ART/01), modern (L-ART/02) and contemporary (L-ART/03), and thematically, into museum studies and artistic criticism of restoration (L-ART/04), drama (L-ART/05), cinema, photography and television (L-ART/06), musicology and the history of music (L-ART/07) and ethnomusicology (L-ART/08).

Furthermore, the extensive experience in interdisciplinary studies that form the history and physiognomy of the Faculty of Cultural Heritage, has attracted more than 40 lecturers and researchers of the aforementioned disciplines, as well as more than 20 from other diverse fields: from oriental studies (L-OR 05: Archaeology and Art history of the ancient Near East; L-OR/16: Archaeology and Art history of India and Central Asia) to philology (L-FIL-LET/01: Aegean civilisations; L-FIL-LET/04: Latin language and literature; L-FIL-LET/08: medieval and humanistic Latin literature; L-FIL-LET/10: Italian literature), legislation (IUS/08: constitutional law) biology (BIO/08: Physical Anthropology), to history (M-STO/02: Modern history; M-STO/08: archival and library studies) anthropology (M-DEA/01: demo-ethno-anthropological disciplines), geography (M-GGR/02: Economic-political geography) geology GEO/10: Geophysics of the earth), chemistry (CHIM/01: analytical chemistry; CHIM/02: physical chemistry) and physics (FIS/07: physics applied to Cultural and environmental Heritage).

All the lecturers and researchers (totalling 63) whose research and teaching engage cultural heritage from various complementary directions have brought resources, including instruments, laboratories, museums (both the University’s historical-archaeological Museum (MUSA) and the open-air Museum of Cavallino are affiliated to the Department) and books to the new Department, as well as experience and competence. The copious activity also depends on the technical and scientific support of 20 technicians and librarians, to whom may be added three administrative staff members. The new Department of Cultural Heritage thus already has an ample range of scientifically updated research laboratories in classical archaeology, medieval archaeology, palaoethnology and experimental archaeology, topography and photogrammetry, restoration, in the documentation, production and elaboration of images, to which may be added laboratories in art history, geography, ethno-musicology, information technology and sciences for archaeology, physical anthropology, archaeozoology, palaeobotany, and chemistry and physics for the cultural and environmental heritage. The range of facilities, that at present are distributed amongst various university locations (Ex-INAPLI, STUDIUM 2000, Ecotekne, the Olivetani, the ex Principe Umberto, and the Convent of the Dominican friars at Cavallino), will be enlarged and enhanced with the preparation of other significant teaching and research laboratories in a new building, almost ready, which has been constructed near the Ex-Inapli building so as to house the Department. Apart from the laboratories and the studies of the Department’s lecturers and researchers, it will also house a series of classrooms where much of the teaching of the courses that dependent on the Department may take place (three-year degree course in archaeological heritage, cultural heritage, technology for conservation and restoration, two-year degree courses in archaeology, art history and sciences for conservation and restoration, and musical disciplines for I level teaching in secondary schools).

It is thanks to this large multidisciplinary grouping of human and instrumental resources that the Department of Cultural Heritage can now be proposed, at national and international level, as a centre for teaching, particularly at post-graduate level (with doctorates in archaeology, topography, ancient history and art history), as well as for research, consultancy and services.