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The excavation campaigns carried out by private individuals multiplied, especially in the Macerata
and Ascoli areas. These operations lasted until the 19th century, despite the radical change of 1820.
In that year, in fact, Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca established, with a specific edict, the definitive dependence of all the excavation works on the cardinal’s authorizations. This was an important first step towards a greater awareness of the protection of cultural property which can also be considered a substantial prelude to the current legislation on cultural heritage.
Private excavations, which are, today, inconceivable in our opinion, were fashionable in the 18 th and
19 th centuries. The discoveries were used to enrich the private collections with antiquities. The collections were composed by most of the objects found through excavation activities carried out in
the absence of scientific methodology.
Among the best-known private collections which arosed between the late 18 th and the first half of the 19 th century in the provinces of Fermo and Macerata were those of the brothers Gaetano and Raffaele De Minicis, and of Giovan Battista Carducci in Fermo; in the Ascoli area the one of Giulio Gabrielli; in the Macerata territory the ones of Alessandro Bandini in Camerino, Nicola Luzi in Treja, Umberto Piersanti in Matelica and Severino Servanzi Collio in San Severino. While in the provinces of Pesaro and Ancona the richest were undoubtedly the one of Annibale degli Abbati Olivieri Giordani, in Pesaro and the one of Camillo Raccamadoro Ramelli in Fabriano. From all of them originates the founding nucleuses of the current museums of the Marches.
Rich libraries, well supplied with useful publications in the study of the collected finds, almost always characterized all the collections, as evidence of the learned character of the personalities who gathered them.