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

Fig. 8: Furore,Conca dei Marini and Tovere (Amalfi), plan.
important medieval road this side, on which stand the greatest architectural episodes religious and civil [5].
The road winds with ramps, curbs and rare flat sections, complying as much as possible the lines of lower
slope and, after crossing the maritime towns, shall be directed to Tovere and from there to Agerola. It brings
together on steep routes, which cut perpendicular to contour lines, from the mountain and the coast,
stretching up to the furthest reaches of the settlement. Even here, the plot is still legible traditional road,
despite multiple impairments introduced by vehicular arteries, first of all, the Amalfi-Agerola, which
penetrates Vettica Minor with straight line segments and curves.
Those villages have mainly concentrated on the main road blocks and lower transverse or parallel in some
cases, denoting the linear form is typical of this area.
The first one, Conca dei Marini, repeats the same orography. Arranged according to an ancient chronicler,
"on the face of a steep mountain", is bolted to the north by high cliffs, steep cliffs to the south and from east
and west by deep valleys. The conformation fostered the creation of small groups scattered in the most
hospitable (m 180-280 above sea level) and a tiny nucleus of the sea, where he was a natural harbor, until
the mid nineteenth century among the few sheltered harbors near Amalfi [6].
The town assumed an elongated configuration on the edges of the road - now almost entirely made carriage
- which, by accounting for the slope, through the whole municipal area from east to west, receiving from the
upstream and downstream laborious steps, called "petigni" and touching around which the three parishes in
the Middle Ages settled urban cores: St. Maria of Grado - be abolished and incorporated at the end of the
seventeenth century in the conservatory of St. Rosa - St. Antonio and St. Michele Arcangelo. The walk,
starting from the far east of Grado, placed in the highest, was heading west to Penna, bordering Furore.
About half of the course, met the square of the Elm, the only open space land, from which started the link
with the largest settlement, extended on the promontory called "Vreca" and relating to the fourth parish, St.
Pancrazio. From there, it branched off to the Cape, where later was erected the tower, Viceroy, and from the
Navy. Fortunately, the Amalfi-Agerola interferes little with the villages, and remained almost as high,
however, has made the village Grado, once the most isolated and inaccessible, accessible directly by car.
Furore extends west, beyond the deep ravine where the stream flows Schiatro, which flows into the famous
fiord, on which, in the late nineteenth century, was built the bold single-span bridge of today's SS. 163. The
soil, which rises from the sea to share about 600 meters of the plateau of Agerola, is characterized by an
exceptional southern exposure and a strong steepness, which makes it extremely difficult journey [7].
Despite the deep changes brought about by the Agerola-Amalfi, you can still recognize the old distribution
scattered in small sets, which is associated with that of last century, set along the road and in the immediate
vicinity, as far as possible in order to facilitate the approach [2]. From the few houses at the mouth, the steep
staircase climbs the ridge to about 300 meters, after which it divides into two branches. The first goes north
and then west to the houses surrounding the church of St. Elijah (about m 250 above sea level), continuing
to the north with steep straight lines and zig zags, orthogonally facing the ascent to below Agerola. The
second was the same way the slope, leading to the three villages belonging to the churches of St. James, St.
Michael and St. Maria of Pieta, linked by narrow longitudinal parallel and continues up to the plateau.
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