A methodological itinerary for studying Mediterranean historic gardens

Historic gardens can be protected if they are appropriately identified and catalogued. According to article 6 of the Florence Charter (1981), ‘historic garden’ can refer to small as well as large gardens, and formal or landscaped ones. This definition allows us to include small gardens as ‘historic’, which are so common in the Mediterranean area, especially in Sicily, notwithstanding they often only have a small area of vegetation and lack adequate documentation which hinders accurate historical replication. So, surveys are needed which on one hand would quickly assess the numerous examples of gardens in the Mediterranean area and on the other would lead to a suitable understanding of the garden itself based mostly on analysing its current condition. The scarcity of historical documentation has meant resorting to direct surveys of all the components in these gardens today. As a result, a methodological itinerary for the analysis especially of biological historical garden traits was developed and was validated for 45 historic gardens in Eastern Sicily. The initial premise is that the garden is its own material document and its plants are its principle components. The methodology includes creating and compiling specific analytical charts to help with restoration and maintenance. The various charts, designed to facilitate compilation and subsequent processing, report on each single plant and its main morpho-functional traits as well as its botanical, cultural and ornamental ones. Making the plants primary components of a garden had led the research to an understanding of each individual garden as well as tying together common characteristics from a system point of view. The methodological itinerary helped us obtain useful data for cataloguing historic gardens which can subsequently be functionally applied to restoration and maintenance. It may also be put forward as a replacement for missing historical documentation, a common occurrence in the Mediterranean area.