Rebuilding a Cultural Legacy in a New Town. Reshape Physical and Cultural Continuity between Old and New Town of Gibellina

Abstract

The article analyses the emblematic case of the post-earthquake reconstruction of the city of Gibellina. In the present case, the reconstruction process has led to serious errors caused by numerous wrong choices; most of these derive from the fact that the cultural heritage expressed by the places and the population was not taken into consideration. To restore the threads of memory broken by the earthquake, a research was carried out – by the writer – aimed at the reconstruction of the image of the old Gibellina; the old city, definitively erased from the ground, has been recomposed through the interpretation of the cadastral and statistical data and literary, iconographic, cartographic and oral sources.