(ANSA) - UDINE, DECEMBER 11 - Investigating the relocations and movements of the mobile cultural heritage within the Alpe Adria area during the 20th century is the goal of the European research project ''TransCultAA'', in which the University of Udine takes part, along with German, Croatian and Slovenian partners. The project was today the focus of an international conference on ''Cultural heritage as symbolic capital: transnational archival research'', organized in the capital city of Friuli by the Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage of the University of Udine and attended by numerous scholars and experts from different European countries. ''In the European Year of Cultural Heritage - said the art historian and archaeologist Salvatore Settis, professor emeritus at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa - it is important that this conference and the project developed by the University of Friuli are part of a very large European project. To deal with a topic such as the movement of cultural heritage - he added - Udine is an ideal location, because it belongs to an area of Italy which is close to the border and was often disputed and its university can claim to be a forerunner of this sector among Italian universities ''. The director of the Department of Humanities at the University of Udine, Andrea Zannini, underlined that ''the protection of cultural heritage is one of the first missions of the university and of our department, one of the key players in this international project with a focus on archives and museums, involving four countries, FVG, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, in a region that in the twentieth century was the scene of large relocations of the cultural heritage, including that of Jewish communities''. '' We have proposed a photographic exhibition made by the students of the masterly course in Art History - explained Donata Levi, professor at Udine university - focusing on the diary of Carlo Someda de Marco, director of the Museum of Udine and conservator of the artistic heritage of Friuli between 1940 and 1945: a heritage kept in several hidden deposits during the war. An exhibition that we hope will go on display not only here at the University of Udine, but also in various locations across the region and elsewhere''. Professor Levi then highlighted that ''these ongoing researches allow us to spread a greater awareness of the symbolic importance of cultural and artistic heritage for all the communities that belong to the Alpe Adria area''. (ANSA).