The Safeguard of a Rural Landscape and of its Use. Study on the Western-South of Lazio (Italy)

Abstract. The paper analyses the policy of the preservation and enhancement (from the economic point of view) of the rural landscape in the western-south of Lazio, and especially in the territory of Agro Pontino. The final act of the reclaimed land, during the Fascism, was realized with the development of the main preservation laws on what, nowadays, is defined as “cultural heritage” but, at that time, was described as “things of historical and artistic interests” and “natural beauties”. The development of the policy of the Italian preservation went in parallel with a deep interesting on the rural world, representing the base of the national economy. The paper starts from the Italian liberal policy of the first decade of the 20th century, considering the maturing attention on the Italian territory between the needs of the economic emergencies (and the rural settlement planning) and the necessary attention of the land management. The investigation on the interaction of the economic interests with the cultural (and political) necessity of the safeguard of the national territory must underline the role of public and private interests, and their influence, on the use of the territories and on the realization of the marshes of the Agro Pontino, a new reclaimed geographical area, very close the beautiful land of the ancient Vulcan of Lazio (nowadays “Parco dei Castelli Romani”).