The lemon garden...
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​The Amalfi Coast

"extraordinary example of Mediterranean landscape, having astonishing panoramic and cultural values due to its dramatic layout and history."

English
Cilento giovedì 02 settembre 2021
di Vito Pinto
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Amalfi Cathedral © Gabriele Conforti

It was Sunday, December 7, 1997 when theWorld Heritage Committee decided to include the Amalfi Coast in the register of the World Heritage List, because, “It is an extraordinary example of a Mediterranean landscape, with astonishing panoramic and cultural values resulting from its dramatic topography and historical evolution."

That is why the Gulf of Salerno’s bay that lays between the Lattari Mountains and the sea of Vietri sul Mare and Positano, has become, a, “World Heritage Site.”

The local communities have found themselves as the guardians and caretakers, for the present and future generations, of a land in such a way that Domenico Rea wrote, “on the day that it was created, God had not forgotten a single detail.”

It’s a vertical landscape, where man has used ancient wisdom to carve out stone steps on the steep slopes that lead to work spaces and hidden streets in the village centers, raising from the sea to the sky while taking into concern the mountainous curves.

On those ridges, a litoralis man with wisdom and hard work built terraces reddened by bunches of piennoli, little Italian tomatoes, perfumed by lemons, made delightful with grapevines.

On his shoulders he carried millstones to arrange the aerial spaces, the macéri, became an inspiration to Mauritius Cornelius Escher'sgeometrical drawings.

"Lemon gardens" they call them, a triumph of nature and those ceramic colours of hand-painted pottery made in Vietri sul Mare, for centuries, have traced into colorful compositional signs on surfaces of white enamel in their popular handmade shops.

"Here is the garden that we needlessly and always look for after knowing the perfect places of childhood,” wrote Salvatore Quasimodo in his "Praise of Amalfi.” The First Maritime Republic with a complex history of an Italy divided into dozens of cultures, languages, dialects, expressions of art, a city-state that knew how to give the people of the Nauti an instrument of orientation, the compass, and a rule of navigation, the Amalfi Table as a crown of laws, became common to all of the sailors of the time. “"The courteous sails of the Republic, "tables" of a patient and ancient civilization still beats visible-invisible in the hours of wind of the small port," wrote Quasimodo.

With history, the stories of local and foreign men intertwined, the latter ones sometimes were joined by understanding or for summer leisure, places that, native accomplices, were known for many as refuges from the saddest history which raged all over Europe in the years of great totalitarianism. It was a good retreat for writers and dancers, musicians and painters, actors and directors, Christians and Jews, a population of people enchanted by a welcoming and "painted land.”

In the harmony of nature, in the infinite spaces of Ravello, among the peaks of the Mediterranean pine trees, the scent of rose beds, the silence broken by the birds chirping, Richard Wagner found that magical garden of Klingsor to complete his Parsifal, the mad and spotless knight in search of the Holy Grail.

Going along the main road is a non-stop turning around bends: Maiolica domes and terraces in the light, "nests built with the threads of silence,” as Stephan Andress recalled, alternated with blooming bougainvillia and bundles of flowers at the white houses surpassing the rocky green; Saracen towers, symbols of a protected past, watched over beaches and creeks, jealous caretakers with intentions of love, stolen kisses, nests of white seagulls.

A lovely landscape, remaining between the light-blue of the sky and the dark-blue of the sea. Alfonso Gatto, a poet, noted: "Unspoken words remain longer, and as it turns out, a small town remained like it once was, to be called by name and spoke about wisely. A dream to say that this is real.”

Only a few tuna boats are left, the pride of an Italian industry that existed: roaming silently in the port of Cetara, leaving at sunset, one behind the other, like many little nuns in the halls of a convent.

In this specific place, “a location of dreams that doesn't seem real until you go there, but whose profound reality is missed when you leave it,” wrote John Steimbeck.An old manor house is transformed into a hotel, immaculate and fresh, like a pergola over the outdoor tables: in front of the never-ending sea, the sweet song of the Mermaids still lingers.

Up in the mountains there are chestnut trees or grape vines, and at the time fresh milk for its delicate products; and here is the Secret Garden of the Soul, which is hidden in Campinola - where perhaps, the last basket-maker of Tramonti exists - with its 300 varieties of roses alongside the fragrant basil and refreshing mint; hydrangea bushes, clusters of proud Strelitzia, a herb, and a never-ending variety of flowers and plants are a hymn to nature, invented and maintained by the Telese-De Marco family.

"The road from Vietri to Capodorso / to Minori, to Amalfi goes up and down / towards the sea of Conca and Furore / it is a mountainous road..." recalled Alfonso Gatto. Here there is, "the scented calm of an afternoon sleep,” a love success. Vertical places, coastal areas, where pergolas of stairs and voices from all over the world blend, places inhabited by, “those who just live a day in the open air within nothing.”

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