Italy

Alessandra Vittorini is an architect with a PhD in Territorial and Urban Planning. She has held senior positions at the Italian Ministry of Culture and served as Director of the Fondazione Scuola dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali.

From 2012 to 2020, she directed the Superintendency for Architectural Heritage and Landscape of Abruzzo, and later the Superintendency for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for L’Aquila and the earthquake-affected area, coordinating activities and programmes linked to the post-2009 earthquake reconstruction. She led the restoration of the Basilica of S. Maria di Collemaggio, which received the European Heritage Award/Europa Nostra Award 2020 (Grand Prix, Conservation category).

Between 2020 and 2024, she directed the Fondazione Scuola dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali, an institute for training and research in cultural heritage management, promoting research and training programmes nationally and internationally, including the PNRR national digital skills training programme for cultural heritage.

She is a member of the Technical Committee of the Extraordinary Government Commissioner for post-2016 earthquake cultural heritage reconstruction, serves on the Advisory Board of the Master in Management of Cultural Heritage and Institutions at Politecnico di Milano, and participates in several scientific committees, including Intrecci: International Journal of Architectural Conservation and Restoration and the series Ethics and Cultural Heritage of the Italian National Research Council. She is Vice-Chair of the Selection Committee for “Conservation and Adaptive Reuse,” a member of the Jury for the European Heritage Awards/Europa Nostra Awards 2025, and sits on the Scientific Committee of the Archaeological Park of Ostia Antica-Rome.

Lorenzo Venezia was born in Vibo Valentia, Italy on 17 August 1992. He studied law at the University of Milano Bicocca and wrote his final dissertation on the role of Interpol in the operations of cultural objects restitutions when illegally exported. He then completed a one-year master’s programme in “Cultural Property Protection in Crisis Response” at the University of Turin with a final project on the use of QR codes inside cultural institutions to raise awareness in the public about illicit art trafficking. Lorenzo is currently working on a research project at C-Ship of the ICHEC Brussels Management School which is focusing on the relationship between local communities, environmental issues and cultural centres in the Region of Brussels. In December 2024, he will start a PhD on corporate financial management and crisis prevention at Universitas Mercatorum with a focus on digital transition in European non-profit cultural organisations as a tool for crisis prevention and the case study of ENCATC.
He has been a member of ESACH since June 2023 and in May 2024 he started to collaborate as Editor.

Gaianè Casnati is a conservator architect, Director of the Cultural Heritage department of the Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena (CSDCA) and Research Fellow in Architectural conservation at Politecnico di Milano. Casnati is the author of several preservation projects in Italy and abroad (i.e. the preservation of the Roman amphitheatre of Milan, the safeguarding of the entrance tower of Shayzar castle in Syria, the structural repair of the katoghiké church of Marmashen in Armenia) and is editor/author of a number of publications on Armenian heritage conservation (several articles and 3 books). She has organised three exhibits on Armenian themes (that travelled in Armenia and in Europe) and has spoken at international congresses (in Italy, Armenia, France, Belgium, Austria, etc.). She has been working for CSDCA and Politecnico di Milano on projects in Armenia for organisations such as UNESCO, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Europa Nostra and the World Bank.
She has been a project manager for the project Restoration Training in Armenia, awarded by Europa Nostra in 2015 in the category Education, Training and Awareness Raising. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the 7 Most Endangered programme of Europa Nostra.