“THAT NAKED VILLAGE IN THE WIND,
BONE OF EVERYDAY EXISTENCE,
PURE, TO BE TOO CLOSE, ABSOLUTE, TO BE ALL TOO HUMAN.
STUPENDOUS AND MISERABLE CITY
THAT YOU MADE ME EXPERIENCE THAT LIFE: UNTIL I DISCOVERED WHAT THE WORLD WAS IN EVERYONE.
WEEPS FOR WHAT HAS AN END AND BEGINS AGAIN.
WHAT CHANGES CRIES, EVEN TO MAKE ITSELF BETTER “
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI
Navelli The Village
Words on a panel between the abandoned and empty houses of this marvelous architecture. Walking through the empty streets, hearing the rumble of your own voice is almost thrilling if you come from a big city. The smell of the past hovers overwhelmingly in the air, leaving no interpretative doubts about unexpected presences. An abandoned village like many others, which tells of itself with often overlooked details.
Navelli is a medieval village of 500 inhabitants in the province of L’Aquila. Built on stone terraces, it has completely depopulated in the upper part. The inhabitants live and work in the lower part of the country. The houses around are without roof or with the door walled up, closed.
The village is part of the association of the most beautiful villages in Italy for its incredible urban conformation. The village has a clear and precise urban structure, with buildings perched on a high rocky spur on the top of which the Baronial Palace was built, built on the layout of the previous Lombard castle. The oldest part of the village is accessible via a cordoned ramp which leads to a dense network of alleys of great beauty, enriched by the presence of palaces, arches, small chapels, Renaissance loggias and residual access doors to the village. Palaces, churches, cloisters, squares, walls, stairways, arches and arches, doors and arcades.
At the foot of the village of Navelli are the cultivated fields of saffron which for centuries have represented one of the characteristics of the territory.
