Archaeology and nature: hyblean cultural landscape and territorial ...

to compact settlements, in which the housing, distributed over the strokes made smooth and attached to the
heights, overlap one another. Instead, if there are no constraints to the expansion, there are different
villages, more or less apart, as in the villages of Amalfi, in the municipalities of the western slope and in
those mountains of Scala, Ravello and Tramonti.
As we anticipated, the connective element of this complex system is the road texture, developed together
with the redefinition of the territory operated in the Middle Ages. The routes, remained almost unscathed
through the first half of the nineteenth century, assured communications within the Coast and outward, to the
area of Naples and Sorrento, the Agro Nocerino-Sarnese and at Salerno. In the rough paths, passable only
on foot or by mule, to recognize a hierarchical role: the main, delineated using the lowest possible lines of
lesser steepness, welcome secondary steep slope, almost always steps, which extend up to furthest reaches
of the settlements.
Despite the many alterations of the original topography, produced over time by natural events such as
landslides and floods, or the construction of roads suitable for vehicles started in the early nineteenth
century, you can still read the old distribution which overlapped and joined by the modern stage. The new
routes are cleared, interrupting and overlapping in many of the earlier, and have completely subverted the
traditional approach to the territory with their pace on the edge of the coast, galleries, winding roads and
bridges to overcome mountains, hills and valleys frequently [2, 3].
The area is served by the national road of the Amalfi Coast n. 163 and n. 366 of Agerola, whose trace has a
major influence on the original urban design, with deep and irreversible upheaval in some of the countries
traversed. The first, which runs from east to west along the coast, joined in the first half of the nineteenth
century, Amalfi and Vietri, last quarter, with Meta di Sorrento and Positano, in the same section was begun
the latter 'other, direct from Amalfi agerolino plateau and from there to Castellammare, only ended in 1930.
The economy of this discussion only allows a rapid excursus on the organization of individual centers, each
of which deserves a long and detailed examination impossible here. Therefore we will focus especially on
the common characteristics and distinctive features present in each of them.
Fig. 1: Amalfi.
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