Past, present, and future of the village of Faito

Located on the top of Mount Faito, one of the most panoramic sites of the Lattari mountains, in Campania, there is a small semi-abandoned village, once a thriving tourist destination and sports resort, built at the beginning of the fifties of the last century in the municipality of Vico Equense. Built to be self-sufficient with a church, garage, theater, farm, residences and hotels, today the village is in a state of severe decay, inconsistent with what the place could offer for its natural beauty. The history of the village dates back to the early twentieth century, when the Giusso family, owner of the Faito estate, turned a mule-track in a footpath going from Castellammare up to the mountain, where the only existing buildings were Villa Giusso and the small basilica of San Michele Arcangelo. Over the years the access to the top of the mountain was made possible both with the construction of a ropeway from Castellammare and a new road that went up the mountain from the town of Moiano. Through a critical analysis of the design choices on which the village was built, and through a comparison between historical and current documentary sources, this paper proposes a critical documentation of the places, aiming at safeguarding and enhancing this territory, considering the remarkable chances that the site still offers today of flourish as tourist attraction and generate new job opportunities within a sustainable development.