Cultural landscapes: materiality and spirituality in the mountains of Abruzzo

The representation of the landscape involves a deep knowledge of the places and of the cultural and natural features on which it is configured. The perceptions resulting are aesthetic material factors, tangible and concretely visible, but also intrinsic, educational backgrounds that uniquely represent the environmental contexts of which they belong to. Among the many research applications pursued in this direction, the contribution proposes screening of samples that mark the immense wealth protected by Abruzzo’s mountains, where materiality and spirituality are blended in a symbiotic reality represented by the perched villages enclosed in the broad valleys , now almost uninhabited, and to reconsider the logic of sustainable development. Supporting the proposal of the study for the knowledge and the upgrading of these cultural landscapes, the writings of Ignazio Silone describe them as they cannot be understood without knowing the Abruzzo’s mountains that form the backbone of the physical structure "the body ", which is associated inextricably moral, “the saints and the poor people”. The writer, on several tracks, provides the historical anthropology which reflect the physical and spiritual environment in which ,urban centers were built and several monasteries located between the mountains of Abruzzo, the current pictures and iconographic representations add informations that contribute to the knowledge and critical representation of the landscape in question.