La complessità del paesaggio agrario del “giardino mediterraneo” a partire dalla tavola di Alesa

The Mediterranean is characterized by landscapes as result from long and complex historical processes in a varied environment. An identification and clarification of the role of the “Mediterranean Garden” (MG) in the Traditional Mediterranean Landscape (TML) is necessary. The MG is often associated with numerous different agricultural landscapes, due to the long historical process that has led to their identification. This paper identifies the characteristics of the MG’s landscape, starting from a historical overview of Sicily. What emerges is the structural, compositional and functional character of these traditional landscapes and systems, which is complex, multipurpose and often with mixed forms of agriculture (coltura promiscua). However, a comparison with the typological systems currently used for the cataloguing and mapping of TML’s shows the transversal importance of MG, and demonstrates how much a better definition and characterization of them is needed.