"Un Paese di paesi": riflessioni per la cura di borghi e paesaggi abbandonati del Molise

In a recent study, Italy is defined as a "Country of countries", a whole of many territorial realities that are often marginal, abandoned, and forgotten and whose future seems increasingly uncertain. In the vast national panorama of the so-called inner areas and fragile territories, already much investigated and analysed by experts in the sector, Molise plays a unique role because it has always received less attention than similar contexts. However, its architectural, archaeological, and landscape heritage can be considered no less important. This contribution – starting from the concept of the landscape as a system, considered by Salvatore Settis as a peculiarity of the Italian territory and characterised by a harmonious integration of city-countryside, cultural heritage-landscape, nature-culture – is based on the importance of knowledge as the first tool for the care of these sites. Only a few examples of the many cases in Molise are briefly analysed, such as Rocchetta Alta, Pesche, and Monacilioni, which are emblematic in showing the centuries-old history and traditions that have characterised this region, but unfortunately, today they are united by extensive ruins in place of primitive settlements. Care, and therefore responsibility, towards what we can define as ‘ruins of modernity’ must be the key to transforming these landscapes of memory into lived landscapes where a community returns to recognise itself.