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Val d'Orcia

Val d'Orcia

The landscape of Val d’Orcia is part of the agricultural hinterland of Siena, redrawn and developed when it was integrated in the territory of the city-state in the 14th and 15th centuries to reflect an idealized model of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture. The landscape’s distinctive aesthetics, flat chalk plains out of which rise almost conical hills with fortified settlements on top, inspired many artists. Their images have come to exemplify the beauty of well-managed Renaissance agricultural landscapes. The inscription covers: an agrarian and pastoral landscape reflecting innovative land-management systems; towns and villages; farmhouses; and the Roman Via Francigena and its associated abbeys, inns, shrines, bridges, etc.

Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Vallée de l'Orcia

Le paysage de la vallée de l’Orcia fait partie de l’arrière-pays agricole de Sienne, redessiné et aménagé lors de son intégration dans le territoire de la ville aux XIVe et XVe siècles de façon à refléter un modèle de bonne gouvernance, tout en créant une image esthétiquement agréable. Les qualités esthétiques du paysage, avec ses plaines de craie d’où s’élèvent des collines presque coniques, au sommet desquelles se regroupent des peuplements fortifiés, ont inspiré quantité d’artistes. Leurs œuvres illustrent la beauté des paysages agricoles gérés avec le génie de la Renaissance. L’inscription comprend : un paysage agraire et pastoral colonisé et planifié qui reflète des systèmes novateurs d’occupation des sols, plusieurs villes et villages, des fermes et la via Francigena, une voie romaine avec les abbayes, auberges, sanctuaires, ponts, qui y sont associés.

Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

وادي أورتشا

تشكل مناظر وادي "أورتشا" جزءًا من داخل البلاد الزراعي في سيينا، وأعيد تصميمها وترتيبها أثناء دمجها في أراضي المدينة في القرنين الرابع عشر والخامس عشر بشكل يعكس نموذجًا من الحكم الرشيد مع إنشاء صورة مقبولة جماليًا. فالميزات الجمالية للمناظر بسهولها الطبشورية حيث ترتفع تلال شبه مخروطية، والتي تتجمع على قممها تجمعات سكنية معززة، قد شكلت وحيًا لكثير من الفنانين. وتشكل تحفها مثالاً على جمال مناظرها الزراعية المرتّبة بعبقرية النهضة. وتشتمل النقوش على: منظر زراعي ورعوي مستعمَر ومخطط له ويعكس أنظمة مبدِعة لاستغلال الأراضي، ومدن وقرى متعددة، ومزارع والفيا فرانتشيجينا ، طريق رومانية مع الأديرة والفنادق، والمزارات، والجسور التي تُعزى إليها.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

瓦尔•迪奥西亚公园文化景观

瓦尔·迪奥西亚公园文化景观是西耶那农业腹地的一部分。为了反映理想化的良好治理模式并创造一幅令人愉悦的美景,在公元14和15世纪划入城市国家领土时进行了重新规划和开发。灰白色的平原上耸立着点点突起的圆锥形小山峰,上面散布着一些定居点,这景致给人一种与众不同的美感。瓦尔·迪奥西亚的景观是文艺复兴时期农业美景得到良好管理的证明。列入《世界文化遗产名录》的景点包括:反映创造性土地管理体系的田园景象、小镇和村庄、通往罗马的法兰西珍那古道及其沿途的修道院、客栈、神殿和桥等。

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Культурный ландшафт Валь-д`Орча (область Тоскана)

Ландшафт Валь-д’Орча – это сельскохозяйственный район вблизи Сиены, сформировавшийся в XIV-XV вв., т.е. в период, когда он был присоединен и колонизирован этим городом-государством. Многих художников вдохновляла ярко выраженная эстетика ландшафта – плоская меловая равнина, из которой поднимаются почти конические холмы с укрепленными поселениями на вершинах. В работах таких художников воспевалась красота разумно организованных сельских ландшафтов эпохи Возрождения. Валь-д’Орча – это планово осваиваемый аграрный ландшафт, где практиковались новаторские методы землепользования, с городами и деревнями, фермами, древнеримской дорогой Виа-Франчиджена и связанными с ней монастырями, постоялыми дворами, святилищами, мостами и т.д.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Valle del Orcia

El paisaje del valle del río Orcia forma parte de la comarca agrícola cercana a Siena. Fue diseñado y creado en los siglos XIV y XV, cuando esta ciudad-estado colonizó su región circundante con el propósito de crear un modelo ideal de ordenación del suelo y componer una panorámica paisajística grata a la vista. Las cualidades estéticas del paisaje de llanuras calcáreas, donde se elevan colinas casi cónicas con asentamientos fortificados en las cimas, inspiraron a un gran número de artistas, que ilustraron con sus obras la belleza de este paisaje agrario modelado según los criterios de ordenación territorial del Renacimiento. Además del paisaje agrícola y pastoral resultante de una colonización planificada en el que se ponen de manifiesto los sistemas innovadores de ordenación territorial de la época, el sitio comprende una serie de ciudades pequeñas, aldeas y alquerías, así como la Vía Francigena de los romanos, que está jalonada por abadías, posadas, santuarios y puentes.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

オルチア渓谷
オルチア渓谷の美しい景観は、イタリア中部トスカナ州シエーナの農耕田園地帯に広がっている。14~15世紀頃、都市国家によって植民地化された際に再開拓され、理想的な統治モデルと、芸術的にも優れた景観が生み出された。オルチア渓谷に広がる特徴的な美しさや、なだらかな白色石灰層の平原、その外れの円錐状にもりあがった丘陵に城塞のある様子などは、多くの芸術家に影響を与えた。ルネサンス期の農村景観を維持しているこの遺産には、計画的な植民農村と田園風景、町や村、農家、ローマ様式のフランス街道に沿う教会、旅籠(はたご)、聖堂、橋などが含まれている。

source: NFUAJ

Val d'Orcia

Val d'Orcia is onderdeel van het agrarische achterland van Siena, herontworpen en ontwikkeld toen het werd geïntegreerd in het grondgebied van de stadstaat in de 14e en 15e eeuw. Dit laatste om een geïdealiseerd model van goed bestuur te weerspiegelen en een esthetisch beeld te creëren. Het esthetisch kenmerkende landschap – platte krijtvlakten met bijna kegelvormige heuvels en daarop versterkte nederzettingen – inspireerde veel kunstenaars. Hun werk illustreert de schoonheid van goedbeheerde Renaissance agrarische landschappen. Het Val d'Orcia landschap bestaat uit een agrarisch en pastoraal landschap dat innovatieve landmanagementsystemen toont, steden, dorpen en boerderijen. En de Romeinse Via Francigena met bijbehorende abdijen, pensions, heiligdommen en bruggen.

Source: unesco.nl

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Val d'Orcia (Italy) © UNESCO
Outstanding Universal Value

Brief Synthesis

Val d’Orcia, in the Province of Sienna, Tuscany (central Italy), is a rural agricultural landscape that retains much of its Renaissance layout, character and aesthetic. The landscape of Val d’Orcia is layered with evidence of human occupation and settlement extending over thousands of years. The area was important during the Etruscan period and developed during the era of the Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages, agricultural and pastoral production declined and much of the area seems to have been abandoned. A period of economic revival and political stability in the 10th and 11th centuries led to the establishment of monasteries, increased use of the Roman-period Via Francigena (an important religious and trade route linking Rome and northern Italy) and the development of villages under a feudal system.

However, it was the dramatic expansion of the city-state of Sienna in the 13th and 14th centuries that led to the creation of Val d’Orcia’s distinctive rural landscape. The landscape became strongly associated with Renaissance (14th-15th centuries) utopian ideals and an ideology expressed, for example, in a circa 1339 painting by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Sienna Town Hall. Wealthy Siennese merchants invested in the development of agriculture, turned the Val d’Orcia landscape into productive farmland, and introduced an innovative land tenure framework (whereby small-landowners paid half of their agricultural produce to merchants as rent). Merchants supported the development of settlements, built fortifications, villas and churches and commissioned paintings by artists such as Giovanni di Paolo and Sano di Petri, artists who reinforced the Renaissance utopian ideals on which the landscape was created.

Following the weakening of Siennese power at the end of the 16th century, the Val d’Orcia gradually declined in economic importance. The comparative poverty and marginalization of the area over the following four centuries had the effect of sustaining traditional land-use patterns and structures and thus retaining the Renaissance layout, character and aesthetic of the landscape. In 1999, on the initiative of five municipalities, the area was declared a regional park whose purpose was to protect and manage the cultural and natural values of the area.

The Val d’Orcia distinctive landscape comprises a network of farms, villages and towns reflecting the Renaissance agricultural prosperity, the mercantile wealth of Sienna, the need for defence, and a utopian aesthetic. The working landscape of fields, farms, trees, and woodlands, is interspersed with low, conical hills on the summits of which are situated towns and villages. The major hill towns of the area include Pienza (a separate World Heritage property), Montalcino, San Quirico d’Orcia, Castiglione d’Orcia, Rocca d’Orcia, Monticchello and Radicofani. Distinctive groups and avenues of cypress pine trees mark out the settlements and define routes.

The area comprises small-scale, mixed-produce farms on which grain, vines, olives, fruit, and vegetables are cultivated. The landscape is interspersed with hay meadows and open pasture fields with livestock. The agricultural landscape, which was inspired by and influenced Siennese painters of the Renaissance, has continued to incite – for example, travellers of the European ‘Grand Tour’ and modern-day photographers. Their images and descriptions have come to exemplify an idealised aesthetic of a Renaissance agricultural landscape.

The boundary of the World Heritage property coincides with the boundaries of the modern-day Park of Val d’Orcia (Parco Artistico Naturale e Culturale della Val d’Orcia).

Criterion (iv): The Val d’Orcia is an exceptional reflection of the way the landscape was re-written in Renaissance times to reflect the ideals of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture.

Criterion (vi): The landscape of the Val d’Orcia was celebrated by painters from the Sienese School, which flourished during the Renaissance. Images of the Val d’Orcia, and particularly depictions of landscapes where people are depicted as living in harmony with nature, have come to be seen as icons of the Renaissance and have profoundly influenced the development of landscape thinking.

Integrity

The 61,188 hectare property, along with the 5,660 hectare buffer zone, encompasses all the elements necessary to understand the Renaissance cultural landscape that is the basis for Outstanding Universal Value. The intactness of the property is evidenced in the size, extent, layout, and character of the planned Renaissance agricultural landscape with its largely intact settlements (towns, villages, farm complexes) and evidence of the Roman Via Francigena (and associated abbeys, inns, shrines, and bridges). The property incorporates most of the five municipalities established when the landscape was created in the 14th-15th centuries. The wholeness of the Val d’Orcia is visible in the number of surviving and largely original Renaissance-period structures; in the well-preserved layout of the towns and farms; and in the continued agricultural usage of the landscape. The cypress pines that mark out settlements and routes make a distinctive contribution to the wholeness and integrity of the property.

A few areas of the original planned Val d’Orcia landscape have been incorporated into the buffer zone because they have been subject to intensive change related to modernisation of agriculture. However, the cultural landscape remains generally well-preserved and can be easily understood by visitors for its Renaissance aesthetic.

Authenticity

The Val d’Orcia is a cultural landscape and rural agricultural ensemble that is well preserved and authentic in its form and design, materials, use and function, management system, setting, and spirit and feeling. The high degree of authenticity of the Val d’Orcia derives notably from its history of comparative neglect and marginalization after the sixteenth century.

The layout of the property is clearly recognisable as a Renaissance agricultural landscape that reflects an idealised form and design. The form and design are further evidenced in paintings of the Siennese School of the period. The materials of the built structures (fortifications, villas, churches, streets, farmhouses), many dating to the Renaissance period, along with their architectural forms, homogeneity and extent, are distinctive and historically truthful. The use and function of the land and built structures display long-term continuity with their Renaissance antecedents. Though the management system has changed through time, the Renaissance land tenure framework is evident in the scale and layout of the land divisions.

The landscape evidences the spirit and feeling of the Siennese painters and merchants who inspired and created the landscape of the Val d’Orcia. Artworks, such as those by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Giovanni di Paolo and Sano di Petri, attest to the aesthetic influence of art on landscape and landscape on art. The aesthetic of the Val d’Orcia landscape is authentic in its ability to continue to inspire the production of art from the Renaissance to the modern day. Local citizens, politicians, farmers and entrepreneurs hold strong feelings of identity with, and pride in the Val d’Orcia.

Threats to the World Heritage property include tourism pressures, modernisation of farming, soil erosion, and gentrification of dwellings, of which the latter is perhaps of the greatest concern for its impact on the viability of local farming communities. Currently Val d’Orcia retains a high-level of truthfulness and credibility with regard to its expression of Outstanding Universal Value.

Protection and management requirements

National legislation for the protection and conservation of cultural heritage (Code for Cultural Heritage and Landscape) provides protection for some individual buildings and complexes in the Val d’Orcia. In addition, it protects ten acres of the World Heritage property including some town centres, surrounding areas and settings around individual sites. Competent offices of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities undertake monitoring to ensure compliance with national legislation.

‘The Val d’Orcia Artistic, Natural and Cultural Park’ (Parco Artistico Naturale e Culturale della Val d’Orcia) was created in 1999 to coordinate the management of the natural and cultural features of the region. Management responsibility in the Park of Val d’Orcia lies with the five municipalities (Montalcino, Pienza, San Quirico d'Orcia, Castiglione d'Orcia, Radicofani). Land tenure includes a mix of public, ecclesiastical, and private ownership.

The principal management tool for the property is the Management Plan, which focuses on the management of the area as a ‘living landscape’. The Management Plan is comprehensive, ambitious, and inclusive; and stresses the need to share knowledge and increase awareness of local history and heritage values among administrators and the local population. The plan’s objectives include environmental tourism development, promotion and support of traditional agriculture and agricultural products, ecological rehabilitation; and coordination of infrastructure works (e.g., power lines, road projects).

Despite the limited resources, the small size of the population living within the park enables effective levels of direct communication between park residents and management through consultation and information sharing. The park director meets regularly with the municipal authorities to discuss on-going park management.

Sustaining the Outstanding Universal Value of the property over time, will require the continued support of the local population; cooperation of the municipalities; resourcing for skilled staff and conservation projects; maintaining the landscape layout, character and ‘Renaissance aesthetic’, maintenance of built structures, natural features and cultural plantings such as the cypress pines and economic viability of the park through agricultural production and tourism. These priorities must ensure that there is no negative impact on the attributes of Outstanding Universal Value, and on authenticity and integrity.
Activities (1)