Il paesaggio dell’entroterra cilentano. Evoluzione e prospettive per la conservazione. The inland landscape of Cilento during seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Evolution and prospects for conservation

The wide territory of Cilento, juts out like a peninsula between the Gulf of Salerno and Policastro, in the southern area of Campania, declared a World Heritage Site, is constituted by a complex and diversity type of landscapes, a wealth of historical and architectural as well as landscape and pristine environment. The persistent difficulty of crossing, represented by the communication routes, that unravel tortuously between the hills and the curved coast, and subsequently the establishment of the National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano, has meant that this region of Campania has been able to maintain its integrity. The particular and unique characteristics of the area, offers a different opportunity of case studies of preservation, ranging from abandoned villages to the coastal landscape . This paper aims to focusing on the issue area of Cilento, often been overlooked in research field in favor of the coastal strip. Indeed, it’s just inland, where vernacular traditions still persist, which are the most recognizable characters of the villages of the Cilento, characterized by it’ s peculiar and distinctive morphological buoyancy that represent the matrices of the local architectures. Starting from the iconographic sources compared with the current state of the area, the paper aims to bring out the evolution and the changes that occurred in these landscapes over the last two centuries, through a perspective that seeks knowledge for the preservation of a unique heritage which today is highly at risk because of the progressive depopulation that for the past two decades has hit the area, increasing growth of the coastal areas.