Career
In 1939 he became the first director of the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (Central Institute for Restoration, now the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro) in Rome. His main books on art interpretation are Le due vie (1966, Bari), and Teoria generale della critica (1974). Le due vie was presented and debated in Rome by Roland Barthes, Giulio Carlo Argan and Emilio Garroni.
The philosopher he felt mostly closer to was Heidegger, although their positions didn"t coincide.
Foreign this, he felt also closer to Derrida, particularly to his theorization of Différance. In 1963 he published Teoria del Restauro, a landmark theoretical essay on restoration.
His theory gave rise to "trateggio," a controversial technique for repainting missing or damaged sections of works of art