Résumé en anglais
The preservation of the historic town has become a requirement of present-day society. The notion of a "whole population, living in buildings dating from the past" is the expression of a need for revitalization and not, as previously held under the criteria of the time, of the need to turn the town into a museum town. There thus emerges a new notion, which is that of a "population inseparable from the town" -as inseparable from it as the natural environment reflecting its past history. Conservation must extend not only to the most outstanding architectural works, but also to ways of living, from which the town derives its peculiar identity.