I muri di cinta dei parchi e dei giardini storici.

The garden was born as "a piece of nature transformed according to the most advanced agronomic techniques"; the boundary wall meant separating the external space, the espace banal, from the internal space cared for and transformed by the wise human action; in the past, nature and forests were separated from cultivated fields and the architecture of private and public gardens with walls and fences. The boundary wall has always had the meaning of separation between an inside and an outside, between the known and measured world and the unknown and boundless one. The scientific advancement and the human ability to control and know the entire planet have completely overturned the concept of nature and espace banal. The whole globe is known, measured, investigated and the whole planet now completely coincides with the "geographical space". In the past, cities were surrounded by walls to be separated from nature, now the few residues and fragments of nature, such as natural parks or reserves, are incorporated within the geographical space. The boundary walls of parks, historic gardens and horti conclusi had the same meaning of separation and protection, from small secret gardens to large royal hunting reserves. This chapter will illustrate examples of studies on the restoration of Vesuvian parks and gardens and the territorial planning and recovery of the historic center of Herculaneum on the basis of the enhancement of the Natural Capital and the composition of an ecological network composed of the historic parks and gardens themselves, redefining the their original perimeters and borders. The restoration carried out of the park of Villa Vannucchi in San Giorgio a Cremano will also be illustrated as an emblematic example of an eighteenth-century garden in the Vesuvian area. All cases examined have in common that to recompose the dismembered parts of the parks and gardens within the design unit and the original perimeters through cartographic research.