Castelli e borghi fortificati nell’Appennino centrale d’Italia. Storia e conservazione

Castles and fortified villages in the central Apennines of Italy. History and conservationThe areas of the central Apennines of Italy constitute a particularly interesting research laboratory with its perched towns and its castles. Here there is a close link between the quantity of fortifications and the prevailing mountainous terrain. This has fixed in the history of the places a condition of correspondence that acts as a counterpoint to all its culture, from the economy to the costumes to the forms of the settlement. The inhabited centers also managed to guard the territory, like the numerous castles built during the Middle Ages close to rocky and harsh slopes. This because they are located in places that due to the altitude were naturally fortified, but which at supplement were enhanced with closed and compact building fabrics.  The fortified villages have often elicited, with their walled houses and the steep and narrow streets, the representations of travelers-artists from the nineteenth century like the Dutchman Maurits Cornelis Escher. The purpose of this contribution is to draw attention to the reality of an architectural heritage that goes beyond the isolated episode of the feudal castle to create a network with natural and anthropic contexts of wider horizon. These are today subject to severe loss of identity due to the marginal position they often find themselves in and also to the action of the many earthquakes that have raged over time.