Cesare Brandi

About the author

Cesare Brandi, born in Siena in 1906, was an Italian art critic, historian, and the foremost theorist of conservation-restoration of his generation. In 1939 he became the first director of Rome's Istituto Centrale per il Restauro, and in 1963 published his landmark Teoria del Restauro, whose phenomenological framework — drawing on Husserl, Hegel, Heidegger, and Croce — shaped the Italian Restoration Letter of 1972 and influenced conservation practice worldwide. His theory gave rise to tratteggio, a technique for repainting damaged works.

His later books attracted the attention of Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida.