Heritage conservation and tourism

Abstract

Much of the mobile heritage, and not only, found in religious space have different values, mainly religious and heritage value, which leads them to serve different audiences. But what distinguishes works of art exhibited in liturgical space and with cultic function, compared to those exhibited in a museum? For a better understanding, the preservation and conservation needs of the works exposed in religious spaces, the tourist enjoyment and the experiences of the public, who are obviously believers and, above all, tourists motivated by the cultural enjoyment of the works of art found there. As is well known, churches, places of worship, in particular hold a vast artistic, historical and cultural heritage which must be taken care of in the same way as the heritage of museums. The awareness of the need to preserve this heritage does not always exist, and the fact that they are goods with a worship function becomes an obstacle that distances the actions to be performed in a church of those that are practiced in museums. It is intended to explore the question of church collections, in the cultuous but also cultural sense in a register of tourist fruition, from the museological versus ecclesiastical contexts. Based on this premise, it is also the intention of this article to present cases where decision making has always been based on consideration, ethics and reflection, but above all on the needs of preservation and conservation of works of art in their relationship with audiences, in the context of visitation and tourist fruition. As a case study, we present the painting 16th century collection, from the church of S. João Baptista de Tomar - Portugal.