This article, presented as an excerpt from the Italian legal‑periodical non‑fiction journal, investigates the stalled legislative reform of cultural heritage protection in Italy. The focus is on the interaction between public law, administrative governance and heritage policy, tracing the legislative vacuum and the institutional delays that have hindered the effective modernization of the regime governing cultural assets. It discusses the tensions among state‑regional competence, decentralisation, conservation‑valorisation balance and the role of private actors. With historical‑institutional clarity, the work outlines how earlier reform proposals failed to produce a cohesive framework, contributing to an ongoing fragmentation in the legal protection of cultural heritage. It offers value to scholars of administrative law, heritage regulation and Italian institutional reform by illuminating why the reform remained un‑completed in that phase.