The two-week course is part of the strategy to reinforce the capacities of dedicated teams made up of Carabinieri and specialised experts from the Ministry of Culture of Italy, designed to protect cultural heritage at risk in Italy and abroad
On September 2024, the Ministry of Culture – MiC and the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage - TPC have jointly organised the fourth edition of the basic qualification course for the training of the Task Force “Blue Helmets of Culture”. The course is part of the strategy to strengthen this multidisciplinary Operational Unit, composed of Carabinieri and specialised experts from the Ministry of Culture (archaeologists, architects, archivists, engineers, restorers and art historians), and designed to intervene in Italy and abroad in areas affected by emergencies, disasters or man-made crises.
The training activity was attended by 23 civilian experts from the MiC and 24 Carabinieri from the Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (TPC), as well as, for the first time, two specialized helicopter and drone pilots from the Carabinieri Aircraft Group and a diver from the Genoa Diving Center. The course delivered in two separate sessions: the first week online, and the second final week consisting of a field exercise was held in Vicenza (Italy) at the headquarters of the Carabinieri Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units (CoESPU). Besides the representatives from the Ministry of Culture, the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and CoESPU, as well as experts from the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, the Italian Civil Protection Department, ICCROM, the University of Padua and the National Fire and Rescue Service added their resources to the wide range of specialised trainers to further explore issues related to the management of crises impacting on cultural heritage.
The first training week concentrated on the emergency management system in Italy, the organisational model of the Blue Helmets, and the support provided by the different institutions involved, including the tools and activities carried out on the field. In particular, Veronica Piacentini, PROCULTHER-NET cultural heritage expert from the Italian Civil Protection introduced the National Civil Protection Service and the role of the structures involved in cultural heritage management during emergencies, while Giovanni De Siervo, PROCULTHER-NET Director, informed them on the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and the efforts made so far by the European Union in the field of cultural heritage at risk. Afterwards, the course addressed the different international contexts in emergency, including the regulatory legislative frameworks and actors engaged in the field. The first training week was wrapped up with specific lessons, such as the management of debris in case of extensive collapses, the intervention techniques for the recovery, transport and stabilisation of archives, books and movable assets in an emergency phase, the safety interventions on buildings and decorations and the emergency plan of the National Library in Florence.
The second week of the course focused more on practical issues, such as: the applicable procedures in case of a national scale emergency, including the role and mandate of MiC and Carabinieri TPC, the regulatory framework of international missions and their management in war zones with lessons learnt from real experiences on the field, as well as the theory and practice for the identification, establishment and management of temporary depots.
The last part of the course engaged participants in a practical exercise organised in the training area of CoEPSU located in the Municipality of Longare, envisaging scenarios of crisis due to a seismic event including looting of cultural heritage assets. During the exercise, the newly trained team of Blue Helmets tested the skills acquired for damage assessment and securing of immovable and movable cultural heritage, with the support of a fixed-wing RADON X drone of the Carabinieri helicopter pilots for the reconnaissance of the exercise area. In addition, trainees managed cultural assets of various kinds, such as archaeological finds, paintings, sculptures, archive and book material also affected by flooding and mud. Military personnel of the Carabinieri specialized in inspection and recording activities reported traces of theft crimes committed inside a damaged structure. Once the cataloguing and packaging operations were completed, the artworks were moved to special temporary storage facilities set up with specific organizational and security criteria preliminarily designed by the trainees.
The closing ceremony, introduced by Brigadier General Giuseppe De Magistris, Commander of CoESPU, was attended by the Head of the Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and the Head of the Department for General Administration of the Ministry of Culture, Luigi La Rocca and Marco Puzoni, and by the Division General, Commander of the Carabinieri Command TPC, Francesco Gargaro. After the delivery of certificates of participation to the course participants, the ceremony concluded with the presentation of a new vehicle assigned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage to the Blue Helmets, provided with special equipment to operate in the specific sector of securing cultural heritage in emergencies.