A Cultural Reading of the Territory. Practices and Interdisciplinary Approach for the Making of Beauty in Apulia

Abstract

Beauty is the only idea that revealing itself to the real world. It is the moment when the perceivable is handed over to men. According to the ancient Greek culture, which was inherently visual, beauty represented a well-suited harmony between finite and infinite, an overarching force to grasp those preternatural laws shaping human life, our earthly life. Consequently, the need to protect and preserve cultural heritage is a human rights issue and that cultural heritage is relevant not only in itself but also in relation to its human dimension, in particular in its meaning for individuals and community as well as in their identification and development processes. Since any cultural reading of the territory and its own beauty should start from the sources of law/the legal instruments available to ensure its preservation, we ought to consider the pivotal example of Apulia and the regional law on beauty, an ambitious project of interdisciplinary bottom-up co-drafting/programming, which ties together seemingly antithetic criteria like quality and well-being, focusing on citizen, on his needs and dignity. This law provides tools, methods and actions to experience the beauty of our territory and to appreciate the vast diversity of Apulian identities’ mosaic.