Uso, disuso, abuso: la tutela del paesaggio montano e l’adeguamento dei rifugi alpini

Considering the cultural value of mountain landscape (from the historic, literary, artistic and scientific point of view), the paper proposes a reflection about the last century transformations due to the development of tourism. The ‘intellectual’ attraction towards mountains of many scholars, scientists and artists over the centuries (from Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci to Ruskin and Viollet Le Duc) shows an interest that goes far beyond the sporting motivations or the only naturalistic value of mountain territories. This implies, among the environmental protection actions, also the need to recognize and safeguard the historical traces of mountain attendance: routes, stone shelters, war artefacts, alpine huts. Generally, these latter constructions have been replaced or transformed by using them or by functional adaptations, so much so that examples of unaltered historical buildings are very rare to find. Among these, one of the first alpine huts built by the Italian Alpine Club is the Garibaldi hut on the Gran Sasso mountain (the first idea dates to 1875, the construction to 1884-86); today it is one of the very rare cases of huts that have never been significantly transformed. In this case, the disuse (following the nearby construction of another hut in 1908, and then of the cableway and the Campo Imperatore hotel in 1933) has preserved the authenticity of the building and the natural environment, despite the frequentation of surrounding paths has changed. The reflection on the meaning and the values of historical buildings and artefacts stimulates new considerations and proposals on the protection of a territory threatened today by intense frequentation, which entails a physical and cultural degradation with irreversible consequences.