A new Renaissance for the ancient villages: between field valorization and guidelines

Ancient Italian villages could be candidates for progressive decline and depopulation that limits their historical and cultural value, resulting in isolation from the surrounding context, a condition not in line with today’s globalization. This raises awareness of the need to enhance them. Highlighting them with strategies that aim at valorization is certainly a necessary action to grant them a new life, so as to stop emigration from the ghost villages and to revitalize the socio-economic fabric of that place. In recent years many examples of enhancement have been tested throughout the national territory with different levels of impact. Thanks to the careful analysis of the range of actions taken for the concrete revival of some small historical centers, we can adopt measured strategies that have a clear response to reality, guaranteeing them new perspectives. The purpose of this report is to provide a proposal of guidelines starting from the field trials already experienced by other villages, considering the preservation of the existing one to reserve memory, culture and the necessities of modern life. Measuring and weighing the interventions on the basis of both impact and effects is a necessary action to design the enhancement, whose innovative character can contribute to a territorial renaissance. We should start from the combination of innovation and tradition to propose a revival of micro territoriality through social actions that increase tourism and the circular economy.