Economic valuation and management of cultural heritage. Methodological notes and some examples of demand analysis. The paper aims is twofold. It first presents a critical overview on the purposes of economic evaluation for the management and policy making in the cultural sector. The issues of economic values and economic evaluation techniques are addressed with the primary objective of offering a non technical framework for a dialogue between economics and other core disciplines dealing with cultural heritage issues. It then consequentially presents two case studies of economic evaluation of cultural demands and values in the Italian environment. One is an application of the choice experiment technique to a museum in Rome, the other is a contingent valuation case study concerning the restoration of Saint Francis cathedral in Assisi.