Knowledge, Restoration and Preservation of Complex Cultural Landscapes between Tangible and Intangible Values. An in-progress Research in Sorrentine-Amalfi Peninsula

An interdisciplinary research program concerns the site of Crapolla, placed on the Southern side of the Sorrentine-Amalfi Peninsula and into the Punta Campanella Marine Protected Area. The peculiarity of this cultural landscape is due to the full symbiosis among nature, with its botanical and hydrogeological components, the archaeological findings and the different architectures therein. The deep inlet of Crapolla includes, in fact, buildings referring to an ancient use of the place as port and as site for collecting and preserving foods and fresh water, as a big hydraulic structure also testifies. In continuity with these latter, there are forms of architecture dating back to the Middle Ages, consisting of the so-called monazeni and of the ruins of a Benedictine abbey complex. Finally, the site is dominated by a tower dating to the second half of the 16th century, proof of the strategic importance that the inlet takes in the historical landscape of the peninsula during post-medieval centuries. What is today visible defines, in the symbiosis between nature and architecture, a very complex but also very "fragile" cultural landscape with reference to natural and human actions. The high level of decay and the risk of loss in the absence of maintenance have determined, since 2008, an innovative experience (Crapolla Lab) in which didactics in architectural and landscape restoration is carried on with a strict connection with research. Therefore, interdisciplinary studies have examined several issues related to the knowledge both of the intangible values of assets − anthropological, literary and social ones − as of the physical-constructive aspects of the artifacts and of the natural environment. This with the aim of highlighting vulnerability factors and strategies compatible with a conservation planning of the site. At the same time, the Crapolla Lab has given the opportunity to trigger a sense of recognition by the local community towards the cultural site and to feel them the need to prevent the loss of the ancient evidences.