Vernacular architecture of the Amalfi coast: a medieval domus in Villa Rufolo in Ravello (Italy)

Abstract

[EN] The oldest medieval domus in Ravello date back to the twelfth century, as an evolution of the original house with barrel vaults, a primitive stone construction with walls of dry masonry of limestone and almost always connected to an olive grove or a vineyard, widespread on the Campania coasts between the island of Capri, the coast of Sorrento and that of Amalfi. Vertical and horizontal aggregations of this module have constituted, over time, the evolution of the building typology, while retaining some of the pre-existing architectural elements and the peculiar construction characteristics, including the strong link of this architecture with the particular orography of the territory. The private building complexes are the result of this ongoing process, consisting of various rooms connected to each other and arranged on several levels, in which the members of a single family lived with their servants. The entire structure was surrounded by walls and defended by towers. The interiors consisted of rooms heated by fireplaces, kitchens, furnaces, Arab baths, cisterns, wells, cellars, warehouses, stables, rooms for winemaking, gardens and cultivated terraces. The paper analyzes the history and construction features of one of the few medieval domus still existing and which has not undergone substantial transformations, also because it was brought to light only in the last decade of the twentieth century, currently located in the boundaries of Villa Rufolo in Ravello. Its original conformation is hypothesized, thanks also to a description made of it in the archive documents. The paper also reports the work carried out on the case study in order to undertake a cataloguing of a heritage in continuous discovery.