MASSA LUBRENSE COAST AND IT'S MODIFICATIONS DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

This contribution, which comes from the study experiences of the research group The Landscape in Laboratory (Il Paesaggio in Laboratorio) (CNR - IRET), aims to analyse the stages of the anthropogenic activities that have marked and modified the image of some stretches of the coast of Massa Lubrense during the twentieth century. The gradual impoverishment of the identity matrices of this "enchanted" place, the land of Ulysses and the mermaids, the destination of travelers and writers of every age, is the result of the progressive affirmation of new models of economic development. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the strong landscape values that through the centuries had defined the originality and uniqueness of this territory began to be altered; following the mining activities, the coast was literally devoured and modified in its secular structure. During the second century the construction of bathing establishments, hotel complexes, private parks for second homes, not regulated by careful planning, has changed definitively the environmental and landscape parameters of this wonderful coast. Both through the rich archival documentation, partly found during the research in the Historical Archives of the Municipality of Massa Lubrense, and through the vast repertoire of stereotyped images related to the phenomenon of mass tourism, we intend to analyze situations and cases that in the second half of the twentieth century changed the coastline in the two sides of Sorrento and Salerno.