Progetto e conservazione attiva del paesaggio delle archeologie

Among the innovations of the European Landscape Convention, a revolutionary document signed in Florence in 2000 and ratified as a law of the Italian State in 2006, in addition to the definition of landscape as "a portion of territory as perceived by the populations, whose characteristics are the result of the actions and interactions of natural and anthropic factors", there is the introduction of the concept of landscape dimension intended as a transversal filter and cultural place of necessary contamination between the different disciplines (Newman, 2024: 539-541). As regards, specifically, the landscape dimension of archaeological sites and, more generally, the relationships between landscape and archaeology, the topic has been addressed in recent decades, even before the introduction of the Convention, by theorists and researchers belonging to different disciplinary sectors with multiple perspectives and tools, applied on variable scales (Matteini 2009). Designing the landscape of an archaeological site/area/park consists in reinterpreting it as a living place, a system in constant and dynamic transformation, where the different components (patrimonial, environmental, human and animal) integrate and evolve into a non-separable unicum, readable only by adopting that holistic and transdisciplinary landscape dimension, proposed by the European Convention in 2000 and specified by the Guidelines in 2008. The actions on the landscape proposed by the ELC and defined as protection/management/planning translate in the case of archaeological areas, into the development of strategies and actions to guide the active conservation, management and compatible transformations of the site over time, taking into account in an integrated and coherent manner, the complexity of the care of archaeological structures and that which governs the dynamics of landscape systems (Matteini 2009; Matteini & Ugolini, 2023). The operation is particularly complex and, like any action on the landscape, requires the crossing of scales - spatial and temporal - and aims to trigger (or, if necessary, reactivate) historical, cultural, ecological, perceptive and functional relationships, preserving the heritage of biological diversity and existing temporal and use stratifications.