The author asks herself about the future of the Superintendences, looking atthe unification of the specialised fields (archeology, fine arts and landscape) as a mean tostrengthen the national system of Superintendences. She focuses on the principle of pro-tection reaffirming the predominance of the recognition of the value in itself in the iden-tification of the cultural heritage. Is the value the one which is perceived, as someonerecently claims in favour of more participative models? Or is the one which is recognized,in other words the result of an operation up to the specialists and the bodies responsiblefor the protection entitled to represent the community’s interest? In this wide-rangingdebate the author also highlights the legal risks that the subjective position of the per-ceived value brings with it. The complex matter of the cultural heritage, sometime con-troversial in giving preference to different interests, benefits of an ultra-centennial tradi-tion, going back to the national protection rules by Giovanni Rosadi, who in the act n.364 of 1909 used to call the objects protected with the word “things”. The term “thing”had been preferred to “monuments”, “properties”, “movables”, as more opened toinclude the above meanings and any other which were not included: in those items it wastherefere open to further meanings, not perceived at that moment, but possibly to be dis-cerned in the future, as it happened thanks to the far-sightedness of the progressive atti-tude towards the “matters of interest”, that didn’t change in the present protection reg-ulation. The author confirms in conclusion the cultural value of the identifications of theobjects to be protected, not only to forbiel, but to direct and spur energies.