Geo-Morphological Matrixes Within The Urban Landscape Of Lower Nera Valley In Umbria

In Italy, the networks of small historical towns and the cultural landscapes associated with them, play a role of great importance for the territorial structure, both from a qualitative and a quantitative point of view. In a morphological perspective, the image of Italian territory can, in fact, be assimilated to a constellation of local micro-settlements, closely connected to the plastic conformation of the geological support. The Lower Nera Valley, in Umbria, represents, from this point of view, an emblematic episode, where the hydrographic system played an important role in the development of urban centers. Moreover, the exploitation of hydraulic energy encouraged the formation of productive settlements and, since the early industrialization, it oriented the transformations of the landscape. The process of industrialization that, since the end of the nineteenth century, shaped a landscape marked by the Roman traces and structured through fortified hilltowns, has produced artefacts nowadays recognized as examples of great urban quality. The Lower Nera Valley represents a noteworthy case because it is paradigmatic of the Italian historical landscape and of its possible future evolutions. Furthermore it allows to test different morphological approaches, comparing the results even with distant territorial realities. The recovery of a geo-morphological matrix of the territory, which takes into account the topographical invariants that outline its physiognomy, constitutes the theoretical assumption of this work, in which the role of morphology assumes the character of a hinge between the urban structure and the form of the territory.