Villas, bâtiments ruraux et architectures militaires entre abandon et récupération: l’habitat historique rural dispersé de l’île Palmaria (La Spezia - Italie)

Palmaria Island, the largest of the small islands of the Ligurian Sea (1.89 km2) is an interesting case study, for having crossed the season of intense building speculation that has affected the coast of Liguria since the post-war period. This “distraction” is due in part to military easements and in part to the territorial protection exercised by the population of the Gulf of La Spezia which has averted the construction of hotel settlements with a strong environmental-landscape impact and the massive spread of second homes. It’s not a casuality that the island, due to its naturalistic and landscape heritage, has become part of the UNESCO heritage. Our research it’s about reconstruction of the original characteristics of the historic settlement, result of a succession of very different territorialisation phases. Without linger on the medieval age, when a inhabited nucleus – of which only traces remain – was located on the island, we can recognize: 1. a long period of intense cultivation of the terraces, well highlighted in the cartography of the late 18th century, with the corollary of a very dispersed settlement of small rural buildings; 2. the period of the spread of military artifacts as a consequence of the defense role of the Gulf assigned to the island during the nineteenth century and beyond; 3. the phase of exploitation of the Portoro marble, linked to the construction of modest-sized quarries; 4. the most recent affirmation of a “light” and essentially day-to-day tourist use. As for the settlement, there were different and sometimes opposite trends, regarding the abandonment of most of the agricultural artifacts and the different fate of the two remarkable and rare examples of stately mansions: villa San Giovanni, (sixteenth-century origin), and villa Smith (nineteenth-century foundation). The first in good conservation conditions; the second in total ruin. The same happened to military artifacts. This work aims to offer a periodization of the aforementioned territorialisation phases – on the basis of field surveys and analysis of the archival sources available (written and iconographic) – and, at the same time, show a geographical-historical research methodology applicable to the study of settlements. The study is also offered as food for thought considering the important urban projects now underway.