The Portico of San Luca and the system of porticoes of Bologna were included in 2006 in the Italian tentative list of World heritage sites of UNESCO, such nomination was confirmed in the latest tentative lists, in which the number of applicants was reduced.
The definitive recognition of the nomination of Bologna as a UNESCO world heritage site is part of the program of the current municipal council.
The nomination is aimed at highlighting the portico, not only as a high-quality architectural work, which in the past centuries has become a distinctive feature of the town, but also in its social, community and anthropological meanings, as a meeting place between public and private sector, as a synonym for street, trade, craftsmanship, profession and home; a meeting place, a protected space: “a common good”, to use a common expression of today. The nomination dossier will have to stress the worldwide uniqueness of the porticoes of Bologna as cultural, material and immaterial heritage.
For these reasons, the nomination project refers to different subjects and is divided into many levels of action, among which the preparation of the nomination dossier for the historical-scientific aspects, such as justifying the nomination and the identification and description of the good in question. Other levels of action include the editing of the Management Plan, which will have to regulate the protection, preservation, highlighting, promotion and monitoring of the good, in order to emphasize the role of the porticoes and to manage them in an innovative way, considering them in their cultural, social and economic dimension. Finally, another phase of the plan is the creation of a graphical knowledge platform, which processes and puts in relation all the information available on the porticoes, in line with future scenarios that are based on the innovative use of new technologies for matters concerning cultural heritage and the full accessibility and participation of the whole community.
