**5. Results**

### *5.1. Different Degree of Transformation in Landscape Ecomosaics*

The comparison revealed the different evolution/involution of the landscape and the different degrees of conservation and transformation that the Valley of the Temples, protected by constraints, has undergone compared to the parts of the Agrigento area not subject to specific constraints.

From the calculation of the average BTC of the study area in 1955—a period in which urbanisation had not ye<sup>t</sup> spread in the municipal area of Agrigento—the entire territory under analysis showed a much higher value of metastability than the regional average for the period (1.76 Mcal/ha/year against 1.69 in the region in 1951). The mean metastability value, on the other hand, decreased in 2002 to 1.54 Mcal/ha/year, significantly lower than the regional average (1.73).

The decrease in the overall average BTC, over 47 years (during the Great Acceleration), was caused by the occupation of agricultural land by new urbanisations, by an increase in bare land (almost 25 ha) and by over 56 ha of specialised horticultural crops, often in greenhouses. In particular, the increase in built-up areas has gone from about 207 ha in 1955 to about 1321 ha today, with an increase of 1114 ha of new buildings; thus, the agricultural land lost almost 15% of its 7710 hectares. In the agricultural landscape, arable land has decreased by over 53%, as well as the almond and olive forest of over 260 ha. The territory has been transformed with a general agronomic intensification of the surfaces (greenhouse and horticultural crops, vineyards, specialised olive/almond groves); finally, there has been an increase of 310 ha of marginal crops (meadows, pastures and uncultivated areas covered in herbaceous plants and shrubs).

The decrease in average BTC due to the reduction in the area of traditional agricultural crops would have been considerably greater if it had not been offset, in ecological terms, by the more than 117 ha of new eucalyptus woods around the city of Agrigento. These new woods were planted after the 1966 landslide with the aim of hydrogeological protection and static soil consolidation [45], though the trees introduced are foreign to the original ecosystem.

The analysis of the ecomosaics of the 1450 ha of the Valley of the Temples, that is, the portion of the territory subject to restrictions, instead showed a much higher average BTC value in 2002 than the average of the entire territory (1.54 against 1.43). While in the rest of the territory those forms of territorial organisation that recall the landscape of the Mediterranean garden have almost disappeared, in the area of the Valley of the Temples, the mixed olive grove has been maintained, albeit with a modest reduction of 21% (from 519 to 410 ha). The mixed olive grove, the so-called "forest of almond and olive trees" typical of the Valley of the Temples, is a remnant of the traditional agricultural landscape of dry arboriculture; it is a cultivation of olive and almond trees in association with other tree crops, typically fig, carob and other fruit trees, and constitutes, together with the limited citrus groves present near the waterways, an element of very significant environmental, historical and cultural importance.

Within the Park boundaries, urbanised areas, although they have increased from 20 to 136 current hectares, still represent just over 9% of the surface. Finally, due to the progressive abandonment of direct cultivation of the fields, citrus groves have been halved and arable land has been reduced by 64%.

In the maps that represent the two landscape ecomosaics (Figures 6 and 7), it is evident how the mosaic tiles of the territory of the Valley that are subject to archaeological and landscape constraints (the so-called "heart of the park", which coincides with the area registered in the WHL of UNESCO, coloured in brown in Figure 5) have remained substantially unchanged. The parts of the territory outside the archaeological area and protected by landscape restrictions (coloured in green in Figure 5) have undergone a modest transformation. The tiles of the territorial context outside the restricted area have, instead, undergone profound and sometimes irreversible transformations. Table 1 shows the values (in square meters) of the surfaces of the landscape mosaic tiles by land use categories in 1955 and 2002. Table 2 summarises and compares the main transformations of the Agrigento landscape and the landscape of the Valley of the Temples in the period examined.

**Table 1.** Evolution of the landscape ecomosaic of the study area (Boundary of the Park, Regional Law 3.11.2000 n. 20) between 1955 and 2002, with the measurement (in m2) of the surface of the tiles that make up the mosaic. Source: Politecnica, Map of the Archaeological and Landscape Park of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, 2003.


**Table 2.** Main transformations of the landscape of the Agrigento area and the landscape of the Valley of the Temples from 1955 to the present.


**Figure 6.** Ecomosaic of the landscape until 1955. Graphic reworking. Source: Politecnica, Plan of the Archaeological and Landscape Park of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, 2003. From the photo-interpretation of aerial photos (in black and white, scale 1:33,000 approximately) made by the Military Geographic Institute with the flight of June 1955, the Ecomosaic Charter was created, indicating the different categories of land use considered as tiles in the landscape mosaic.

**Figure 7.** Landscape ecomosaic in 2002. Graphic reworking. Source: Politecnica, Plan of the Archaeological and Landscape Park of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, 2003. The map was drawn up following the photo-interpretation of the colour aerial photos.

#### *5.2. Historical Iconography of the Agricultural Landscape of the Valley of the Temples*

Travellers on the Grand Tour who arrived in Agrigento described a landscape characterised by the presence, among the archaeological finds, of fruit trees, vegetable gardens and arable land. The main travellers who have crossed, written on and drawn the Valley are: J.P. d'Orville, 1727; J.H. Von Riedsel, 1767-70; P. Brydone, 1767-71; M. J. De Borch, 1776-77; H. Swimburne, 1777-78;P. Hakert, 1777; C.S. Saint Non, 1778; J. P. L. Saint Non, 1778; F. Munther, 1785-86; H. Bertles, 1786; J. W. Goethe, 1786; F. L. di Stelberg, 1792; J. G. Seume, 1802; K. F. Schinkel, 1804; W. Wilkins, 1807; J. Russel, 1815; J.A. de Gambillon, 1820; A. E. De La Salle Gigault, 1882; A. Conte de Forbin, 1823; W. Light, 1823; O. Ormonde, 1832; W. H. Bertelett, 1853; F. A. Gregovius, 1853; G.F. Hoffwailles, 1870; G. Vuillier, 1897; E. Viollet Le Duc, 1836-37; Berenson, 1953. In the illustrations accompanying their reports, there are always farmers intent on cultivating the land adjacent to the temples and ruins of the city of Akragas (Figure 8). From their descriptions, it can be deduced that the presence of fruit trees was not only in the peri-urban orchards, but that it also extended into the hilly areas; here, the absence of irrigation water required the presence of dry arboriculture which, in the Mediterranean environment, sees olive and almond trees as protagonists, followed by carob and pistachio trees.

Among the testimonies of these travellers, each of which saw and described the temples and their landscape in their own way (for the interpretation of the different literary sources, which would require an in-depth study that goes beyond the purposes of this article, see Barbera, Di Rosa, 2000 [53]; De Miro, 1994 [29]), the richest in information are those left by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who visited Agrigento in 1786. In his travel diary (*Italienische Reise*, 1816), he described the agricultural landscape with a list of the cultivated crops and noted all of the aspects of the agricultural techniques of the countryside in

use at the end of the 18th century. The crops and techniques described by Goethe find a perfect match in the memories and agricultural practice of the elderly peasants who are still alive today.

**Figure 8.** Remains of the Temple of Vulcan, drawing and engraving by Jean-Pierre Louis Laurent Houël, 1787. Illustration extracted from De Miro [29].

> What is relevant, through the reading of these memories (see Table 3), is the possibility of comparing the images of the landscape described and drawn with the existing landscape; from this comparison, it can be easily seen that the landscape of the Valley of the Temples (even though partially degraded by the abandonment of crops) has not substantially changed [54]. The countryside of the Valley of the Temples is a living testimony to the transformation of Sicilian agriculture which, between the 18th and 19th centuries, led to the spread of the cultivation of fruit trees in large areas previously dominated by pastures, bare arable land and Mediterranean scrub. The traditional agricultural crops which are still established in the countryside of the Temples saw, in the period between the 18th and 19th centuries, the moment of their affirmation as crops that define the historical Sicilian agricultural landscape.

> On the basis of agronomic, forestry, agricultural landscape and literary sources analyses, the Park Plan has defined a specific model for the Valley of the Temples that makes historical-settlement peculiarities and aspects of Mediterranean scenography and rurality the strong point of sustainable development, able to guarantee its protection and reproducibility over time [45].


