Il paesaggio dell’entroterra. La Valle Amiternina fra persistenze ed eventi. Una proposta di lettura critica

The Amiternina Valley, affected by the violent earthquake in 2009, is a morphologically and historically homogeneous reality, characterized by a strong identity. Despite being subject to multiple and fragmented studies, from time to time distinctly oriented to settlements, urban planning, socio-economic, architectural and historical aspects, it has never been framed by a landscape point of view. Neither induced transformations - sometimes intensive, more often minimal and persistent -were considered in this light, so as the conservation and development issues related to this territory. The historical and critical understanding of the territorial entity in its present structure – considered as the result of a long development process - derives by the indirect analysis of sources (from literature to historic photographs) and the direct study of the territory. Among the various findings made possible by this work there is for example the strong impact that the urban sprawl of the city of L'Aquila has determined on the 'open fields' system that dominated in the past the Aquila basin. This led to an irreversible process of transformation aimed at fragmentation of the center-Apennine landscape in a number of 'patches' isolated and chaotically distributed throughout the territory. In this context, it is also examined current issues such as those related to the post-seismic 'new towns' and, above all, to the vocations of an area that shows some differences but also similarities with the coastal areas of the peninsula.