Il paesaggio storico culturale di Ischia. Spunti di riflessione

The ‘reading’ of the historical cultural landscape of the island ‘green’ at the end of the Campi Flegrei is complex for multiple values to consider. It is a territory that already from its origin is characterized by unique and specific aspects; In fact, the geological experts define it ‘laccolith’, that an island born from an eruption marina. This singularity is not only a matter, but even permeates the site today in which the Epomeo mountain top overlooking a context of evident traces of lava flows and an intense forest vegetation, providing spectacular views, to the coast overlooking the sea, where even today special names connote sites, such as the creek called ‘scarrupata’. On this island there is still a significant historical and archaeological stratification since the early settlements of the Greek colonists. In the six municipalities that exist today - the result of an administrative breakdown of the completely incongruous with consequent parochial pressures - they have alternated different civilizations, were built urban centers and the first of these towers, part of a defense system against Saracen invasions which had in castle its strategic bulwark. The historical centers have been heavily modified, with extensions animals and use of the land: they wanted the characters to the stratified period which followed the Second World War, as evidenced by the travels of Cesare Brandi, who develops the character still "rural" the island territory at the time of his travels before and after this conflict. A historic agricultural vocation, despite the fact that the sea surrounds it completely, based on traditional crops that tear rough edges to the area of land and, taking advantage of the sun exposure and the fertile volcanic soil, determine the engraftment of vineyards, whose wines are very popular today. Among the extraordinary island resources are added, still, hot springs, always linked to the volcanic nature of the site, which in some cases visually characterize the territory. Natural and cultural resources that characterize the historical and cultural landscape, then, are many and the contribution that it has tried to provide a diachronic reading, useful to start a process that integrated conservation, environmental protection and preservation, can interpret correctly instances of exploitation.