Rocks, settlements and fortifications in Calabria, between tangible and intangible protection

The presence of settlements near rock formations has been a recurring phenomenon over the centuries, a consequence of a strong and diversified relationship between the places of living and the natural environment – today disappeared and to be recreated –, which has shaped different realities along the entire Apennine ridge from Pollino to Aspromonte. Particular lithic formations prompted believers to identify them with the sacred, making them, through religion, magic, and animism, a natural vehicle for the manifestation of the divine. While it is true that by protecting their materiality, humans preserve their history, at the same time, the mechanism underlying each of these acts is, in many cases, tradition, belief, religion, and the avoidance of evil. Therefore, certain sites considered ‘beneficial’ in the environmental context are privileged. This has played a decisive role, both in the localization of settlements and in the positioning of defensive structures and religious buildings, from which the built environment has often continued to extend, between material and immaterial protection.