Fragments of Natural Landscape

Looking at the degraded natural landscape, as it appears today crossing the South of Italy, and especially Calabria, it appears to pass through a palimpsest of traces that can only let us guess what artists of the expedition Saint-Non saw about two hundred and forty years ago. The chaotic urban system, fragmented cultivated land, infrastructure and minimum services are attributable to a single factor: the impact between an arduous natural environment and an economic-social structure that has hindered, or even prevented, a rational use of resources. However, beyond this recent stratification, the oldest forms of human settlements are still recognizable, clearly discernible in the views of the Voyage Pittoresque and the description of Dominique Vivant Denon, partly attenuated in the rewriting of Saint-Non. This contribution presents as an integrative visual kaleidoscope, a collage of images, both, fragmentary and variegated.