Between production and devotion: rural architecture and landscape transformations in the Caserta territory and in the Ager Nolanus

The contribution analyzes the agrarian landscape of the Caserta hinterland as the outcome of a complex historical and cultural stratification, readable through rural architecture. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a form of “learned” rural architecture emerges, expressing a solid agrarian entrepreneurship capable of combining productive and representative functions through models derived from urban architecture. Farmsteads, often organized according to the courtyard typology, take shape as self-sufficient organisms, enriched with decorative and defensive elements. An emblematic case is Masseria Monti in Maddaloni, characterized by a fortified layout, a dovecote tower, and refined elements attributable to Vanvitellian culture, now in a state of decay. The contribution also examines the rural chapels of the Ager Nolanus, with particular reference to that of San Francesco in Cimitile, a testimony to the connection between worship, agricultural production, and the land reclamation works of the Regi Lagni in the Seventeenth century.