A new approach to enhance the appeal of the Italian territory through art: three study cases from Marche Region

Abstract

AbstractBorn from a desire to promote the landscape by integrating its origins and physical aesthetics with its naturalistic, cultural, and artistic heritage, we develop narratives about three locations in central Italy, telling them in the language of popular science, supported by the language of art. The different disciplines of science, poetry, and ancient music are applied to the same sites, producing emotional experiences where the encounter and interplay between different representations, and combinations of representations, become an expression of a place. The research introduces three geosites from the Marche Region, central Italy: I Sassi Simone e Simoncello, La Grotta della Beata Vergine di Frasassi, and the Infernaccio Gorge, in order to propose our multidisciplinary approach to the international public. These have been chosen for their value and charm, for their different processes of genesis and evolution, and for the cultural context and feelings they evoke. In a new approach to science communication, our study uses art in the form of music and poetry to encourage people to learn about landscapes. The paper explains the genesis and evolution of the three places, suggests trekking itineraries, includes a poem written specifically for each site, and describes a piece of ancient music and video and cultural offerings relating to each location. Our goal is to educate by fashioning a new perception of landscapes, starting with their physical beauty, and then building on scientific research in co-operation with arts, to improve what we know about their problems and weaknesses, but also about their culture and other strengths.