UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: two new awards for Italy

From 17 December 2020, Italy boasts two new elements registered on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage: ‘The art of glass beads’ and ‘Musical art of horn players’. These are two multinational elements, put forward respectively by Italy and France and by Italy, Belgium, France and Luxembourg.

The announcement was made at the 15th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, held online because of the health emergency.

Through the decision of the Committee, UNESCO recognised the universal value of two extraordinary traditions of our territories. The hand crafting of glass beads, founded on vast knowledge and expert technical skills, is rooted in the historical territory of the city of Venice and the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello. The instrumental technique of hunting horn players is related to song, to the mastery of emission and vibrato, to resonance of places and to conviviality. In our country, this musical tradition is represented by the Equipaggio della Regia Venaria (Piedmont), which has established contacts with the horn players of Alto Adige.

The new registrations bring the number of Italian elements and traditions registered on the List to 14, out of a total of around 500 to date. The two prestigious awards also prove the great teamwork of our national system, which involved, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and for Tourism, local institutions and communities and the committees that made the nominations.

For more information, visit the page Italy and UNESCO and the website ich.unesco.org

Cover image: ‘Antique Murano Glass beads’ by Effervescing Elephant is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0