Italy
[Birds] ... take utter delight in the exquisite foliage, fertile valleys, pure, shimmering water and the pleasant countryside. What is striking in these elements is that what appears pleasing and charming to us also seems so to them... And we should not be surprised since they take delight in only what is natural. Indeed, in view of these things, a good part which we consider natural is really not so; on the contrary, it is quite artificial. That is to say, the laboured fields, the trees and other plants, controlled and arranged in order, the rivers which are narrowed within definite edges and guided along a definite course and other similar things possess neither the state nor semblance to what they would have in nature. Thus, the sight of any country inhabited by any generation of civilized men, even without considering cities and other places where men have been subject to being together, is artificial and very different from what it would be in nature.
(Giacomo Leopardi, A Eulogy of Birds)
[Gli Uccelli] ... si rallegrano sommamente delle verzure liete, vallette fertili, delle acque pure e lucenti, del paese bello. Nelle quali cose è notabile che quello che pare ameno e leggiadro a noi, quello pare anche a loro... E non è da maravigliarsene: perocché non sono dilettati se non solamente dal naturale. Ora in queste cose, una grandissima parte di quello che noi chiamiamo naturale, non è; anzi è piuttosto artificiale: come a dire, i campi lavorati, gli alberi e le altre piante educate e disposte in ordine, i fiumi stretti infra certi termini e indirizzati a certo corso, e cose simili, non hanno quello stato né quella sembianza che avrebbero naturalmente. In modo che la vista di ogni paese abitato da qualunque generazione di uomini civili, eziandio non considerando le città, e gli altri luoghi dove gli uomini si riducono a stare insieme; è cosa artificiata, e diversa molto da quella che sarebbe in natura.
(Giacomo Leopardi, Elogio degli Uccelli)
Italian agricultural landscapes
1. Cultural dimension
Considered in national planning and policy system
2. Typical agricultural landscape types
- Agricultural landscape of “transhumance”
- Agricultural landscape of “villas” e.g. estates
- Agricultural landscape of “mezzadria” e.g. sharecropping
- Agricultural landscape of “grange” e.g. abbey and farm systems of Po valley
- Agricultural landscape of “latifondo” e.g. large estates
3. Cultural elements connected with national agricultural landscape
In Italy all the tangible elements that constitute agricultural landscapes:
- Physical structures and building techniques
- Landscape features
- Crops
- Agricultural objects
- Land use
4. Disciplines and professions dealing with agricultural landscapes as cultural heritage
- Architects
- Agronomists
- Geographers
5. National governmental departments dealing with agricultural landscape and cultural heritage
- Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Landscape
