Rappresentare la qualità

The experiences of Goethe and other travellers of his period represent the starting point of this study: they have been used to rediscover not just the Cilento region and its archaeological treasures but all forms of production, both cultural and material, through which the peoples who have inhabited these places and the current inhabitants have structured the landscape. Indeed, landscape in contemporary culture is characterised by two fundamental aspects: a ‘subjective’ dimension deriving from the effects of personal perception of a frequented space, and an ‘objective’ dimension made up of physical presences and phenomena in geographically defined space in accordance with principles that are also to be found in the European Landscape Convention. The convention defines landscape as a portion of territory “whose character derives from the action of natural and/or human factors and by their interrelationships”, but it also emphasises that landscapes are described as they are “perceived by populations”. The diversity of the situations that exist in the area of the National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano is considerable. This has led to the investigation not just of aspects that have contributed to the making of the region and the landscape in material terms, but also to extending the study towards immaterial phenomena that have played a similarly important role in characterising the place, with clear consequences on the resulting quality of life. The use of GIS technologies for creating a Regional Information System of the entire park area has made it possible to combine all the physical and intangible components with a view to safeguarding and enhancing the region.