“We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants”: so wrote Bernard of Chartres in the twelfth century (Metalogicon, III, 4). That’s a metaphor which intends to express the dependence of the modern culture on the ancient, and it’s very adequate for the rediscovery of the important knowledge assets of the Grand Tour’s literature. Through long stays in Europe and in Italy, many traveller-writers have described the characteristics of the areas visited from a critical point of view, highlighting their strong and weak elements with great wit and sense of observation. One of the most significant and unknown works concerning this literary current is the tale of the trip from Paestum to Policastro, made in 1828 by Craufurd Tait Ramage: his sketchbooks are not only a description of the evidence of the past and of the archaeological remains of Ancient Greece, but a small geo-history of the Cilento (shortly before its insurrection of that same year), as the first stage of a journey that brought back a fresco of the South of Italy, as it was before the process of Italian unification, with respect to its agricultural landscapes, customs and dietary habits, attitudes, superstitions, society, culture, religious and political affairs. So Ramage’s writings try to bring into focus such important aspects of the anthropic and natural geographical landscapes traversed, and they can help us, inductively, to reconstruct their social and economic structure. Ramage’s trip therefore is an aesthetic and geographical description founded on a subjective and objective spirit, in which influences caused by observation of natural beauty are not limited to mere aesthetic contemplation but, through culture and skills of observation, they give voice to the territory and its testimonies. Therefore, in this literary work the fundamental parts of a geo-historical process, whose consequences are discernible today, are evident in the critical points of Southern Italy, and of Cilento in particular, according to the same dynamics which were already widely and effectively described two hundred years ago.
Over the past fifty years, the areas of geographical research have expanded, with an articulation of the idea that space is no longer only measurable with Euclidean geometric coordinates. In particular, the cognitive sciences and functionalist theories have led geographers to also study the “invisible” aspects of landscapes (Ruocco 2010), according to precise “grammars” (Vallega 2004). Therefore, from the 1990s onwards in the Italian scientific context, we can find a relationship between geography, literature, historic essays and criticism of travel literature. So, the research tools of geographers, together with those of sociologists and psychologists (cognitive and social), thus gave rise to “a new study and research paradigm which considers the travel experience and literary productions as useful not only to reconstruct the ‘geographies of the past’ and the contemporary ‘history of geographic knowledge’” (Scaramellini 2008, p. 39), but also to try to establish their respective contexts of reference. These, for the most part, revolve around the concept of landscape, understood as “space of artistic perception”, “container of myths, dreams, emotions” (Tosco 2007, p. 85) in an evocative dimension that – observes Quaini (2006) – raises more attractiveness than the strictly analytical aspects of the geography. So, since a long time ago, in addition to “classical” studies in travel literature (in a descriptive and historical-humanistic way), On the history of travel literature, refer to Fasano, online. Regarding geographical and historical studies on the topic, refer to Mozzillo (1992) and Scaramellini (2008). For a wider reference bibliography, refer also to the online listings of the National Central Library of Firenze (http://grandtour.bncf.firenze.sbn.it/bibliografia). The geographical concept of “landscape” has experienced a lot of evolution in the last fifty years. In Italy, especially after the criticism of L. Gambi, it has merged into the concept of “territorialisation” (Raffestin 2005).
The literature of the Grand Tour, as an artistic, cultural and social matrix of production, Frémont (2007, p. 128), in turn, approaches the conception of art as “production of the real”. But the idea of a profound interrelationship between reality and its artistic reproduction is above all philosophical, and goes back to the theory of Platonic On the formation of a collective mentality of Italy’s image through the “mirror” of the Grand Tour, refer to de Seta 1982. The definition “Grand Tour” is attributed to Lassels (1670), who writes: “Travelling brings a man a world of particular profits [ The British already adopted this custom during the 17th century, followed by the French and Germans: Italy was the preferred destination for these trips, with its art cities, including Rome, Florence and Naples (Giosuè 2004, p. 7). Refer to Mazzetti 2008 [c], p. 351. On this question, refer to the link between historical-geographical studies and the territorial planning evidenced today by Turri (2002, p. 8).
Through these reflections, this contribution, with the support of historical maps and some well-known texts from the 17th to the 19th century, follows the travel diary in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Craufurd Tait Ramage (1868), The work of Ramage ( Born in 1803 in Annfield (Scottish county of Midlothian), Ramage graduated in Literature from the University of Edinburgh in 1825, immediately becoming preceptor of the youngest children of Sir Henry Lushington, baronet and consul of St. M. Britannica in Naples. Here he spent two years, until he made the journey through the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1828 and then returned home, where he married, continuing his work as a tutor of the sons of high-ranking families and dedicating himself to literary activities, with the publication of different works. Appointed in 1841 as Deputy Director of the Wallace Hall Academy of Closeburn, in Dumfreisshire, he became District Judge of the same county (1848), receiving a degree in Jurisprudence from the University of Glasgow (1852). He died in 1878. After reaching Sapri, and from there, Calabria (Tyrrhenian and Ionian), the Scotsman crosses part of the Lucanian and Apulian coast to Taranto, then heads towards Gallipoli, to the south-east. Here he sets sail to go up the Adriatic, after having passed the Cape of S. Maria di Leuca, and subsequently visits Brindisi, Foggia and the Molise, returning to Naples at the end of June. Refer to Ramage 2013, p. 27. The notes are turned into a series of letters addressed to Mr. Morris Charles Jones, who had invited Ramage to tell him in writing of his experience between the cities of the south-western and south-eastern coast of Southern Italy. The literary escamotage is typical of odeporic literature, in which the narration of the path had to take place in direct form (Fasano online).
Leaving Naples in 1828, the real journey of Ramage starts from Cilento, a part of the ancient Lucania according to the geographical, erudite meaning of the time, Ramage reaffirms this, when, having arrived near Torchiara, he writes: “You have to know that Lucania is the name of that part of Italy in which I am now” (Ramage 2013, p. 58). In a study some years ago, Aversano (1983), through research of archival documents, has reconstructed the temporal and geographical process that, during the Middle Ages and the modern age, testifies the replacement of the ancient toponym of Refer to De Sanctis (1840). The Refer to According to a customary but incorrect etymological explanation, the name “Cilento” would have meant related to area, deriving from
Figure 1
Delimitation of the Cilento area on Google Maps (black line introduced by the author).

boundaries, For the delimitation and denomination of the area, see Mautone 1990, p. 227; Preziosi 1990; Aversano 1987 and 1989.
The travellers of the time did not pass Paestum (already difficult to reach: Capano 2012, p. 140), “because the road was insecure, haunted by brigands, full of dangers”, D’Amico 2001, pp. 18–19. Paestum and its temples, the only visible sign of civilization in an otherwise degraded and swampy area, represented the “columns of Hercules” before which the Grand Tour travellers stopped, to resume the journey further south, heading towards the centres of the Sicilian part of the Magna Grecia. The journey on foot, of ancient tradition (religious, contemplative, philosophical, scientific), during the Grand Tour becomes a physical-spiritual educational practice, walking being a condition for bodily and psychic strengthening, through observation, meditation and “the dream”. Concerning this, see Rousseau 2012. It is very difficult to determine which maps Ramage had but they had to be detailed enough, since, as he remembers during his landing on the coast of Paestum, they report details on a great scale. They could have been Austrian or French maps, or drawn for the occasion by some local topographer or, again, some examples taken from the famous
Figure 2
The main points of Ramage’s travel through Cilento, highlighted on a Google Earth satellite image (author’s underlining)

Through Ramage’s diary, the disintegration of the relations between city and territory of the Bourbon Kingdom appears clearly, already taken over by G.M. Galanti, T. Monticelli and subsequently, by C. Afan de Rivera. The story opens with the lively description of the path, riding in a calash from Naples to Salerno, already full of contrasts: the poverty of the population and magnificent landscapes (Ramage 2013, p. 38), chaotic traffic and deep bonds between community and environment, About Torre del Greco, periodically destroyed by Vesuvius, Ramage highlights the link between population and native soil, so deep “that the country has always been rebuilt in the same place, despite not a century passes that does not run new dangers because of the volcano” (Ramage 2013, pp. 39–40). It is a reflection that, developed at the beginning of the twentieth century by V. de la Blache about the region as an “area of the kind of life”, was recently revived by Turri (2004, p. 161). Ramage (2013, pp. 40–41) describes Nocera as “a very irregular town in the arrangement of houses” and, at the same time, admires its Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, “built on the ruins of a Roman temple”. Ramage cherishes above all the rich citrus groves, vineyards and fruit trees of the Badia Cavense, famous for its power and its precious library. The reference concerns Salerno and the blackened tops of its castle, also built by the Lombards during a period of wealth of the city, and its famous medical school.
The backwardness of the south area of Salerno seems to be even more evident: here, during the stop in Paestum – reduced to a small number of houses The Scotsman often finds himself staying in miserable inns, sleeping on wooden planks and straw mattresses, with meals based on black bread, sausage or fish soup, accompanied by a bad wine. The misery of the inland areas of the province of Salerno is marked by the
Figure 3
The Sele plain in an extract from Sheet 19 of the Atlante geografico del Regno di Napoli delineato per ordine di Ferdinando IV re delle Due Sicilie & C. & C. da Gio. Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni geografo di Sua Maestà e terminato nel 1808 [Geographical Atlas of the Kingdom of Naples outlined by order of Ferdinand IV King of the two Sicilies by Giovanni Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni, Geographer of His Majesty and completed in 1808]. Napoli, 1788–1812 (Firenze, Cartographic Archive, 11th group, Order No. 28, archive folder 85, doc. 5). Scale 1:126,000. As can be seen from the drawing, the plain and the area of Paestum, bounded to the north from the southern foothills of the Picentini Mountains and south from the Alburni Mountains, are impaludate, with riverbeds without embankments and control, and extensive cultivation of poor quality (changes and additions are introduced by the author).

The situation improves after the river Testene (deformation of the original name of “Pastena”, as discovered by Aversano and as we can see in the cartography of the seventeenth century), Refer to Aversano, Siniscalchi, 2008, p. 77. Concerning this, see Greco 1975, p. 84. In addition to remembering what was revealed about the fortified centre of the Monte della Stella [Mountain of the Stella] by the scholars from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century (as G.N. Del Mercato, F.A. Ventimiglia, P. Magnoni, G. Racioppi) – for which reference is made to Acocella 1971, Aversano 1982 and Cantalupo 1989 – it is interesting to note that the tradition of studies that indicate a Petilia on the Mountain of the Stella in the ancient Cilento was protracted in the cartography of the nineteenth century, as shown by the reference to the Colli Petilini in the map titled “ Concerning this, see G. Antonini (1745, Discorso III, p. 22), in which the number of deaths amounted to 4,000. The circumstance is caused by the torrential character of the Alento, which has great flow rates during rainy and dry periods, more or less accentuated in those of drought. The springs are located on Mount Le Corne (894 m a.s.l.), within the National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano, while the delta is divided between the Tyrrhenian Sea, near Velia, and the towns of Ascea and Casal Velino. Ramage hypothesises a seismic cause for the underground path of the river, but in reality the underground hole is a particular type of karst gorge, defined as “epigenetic” and formed by rain infiltration into already fractured rocks. The cracks gradually become larger, until they reach the size of wells and caves, with developments of hundreds of metres, and sometimes of many kilometres, often crossed by underground torrents, just as in the case of Bussento (Aloia&Guida online).
If “landscape modelled at a certain moment in history generally no longer works in later times” (Turri 2004, p. 171), the Cilentan one, persisting ancient forms and peculiar kinds of life (especially in the inland areas), has changed little, with positive (environmental and landscape preservation) and negative (economic-cultural backwardness, strong youth emigration) effects. See Siniscalchi 2008, pp. 78–87. The
Visiting Porcile [sic] (Porcili) and crossing the valley of Acquavella (whose division between a few rich cultivated lands and many others left uncultivated (Yonder p. 75) reveals its economic depression), Ramage understands the real danger of the latter; he reassures himself however during the journey to Ascea and Sapri. An ex-official of Murat shows him the olive oil, corn, meats and cured meats, together with dried figs, as the finest food products in the area (Fig. 4), The information – confirmed by the The data is also in the It was a government monopoly since the time of Frederick II of Swabia, with a significant profit for the state, which did not allow citizens to draw water from the sea and let it evaporate in the sun to obtain salt. Concerning this, see D’Arienzo 1991[a], pp. 3–24, and 1991[b], pp. 65–74. The salt tax, already lowered during the Napoleonic decade (see Colletta 1861, p. 30), is then reduced by a third by Ferdinando II in 1848 (see Pagano 1853, p. 25).
Figure 4
Benedetto Marzolla, Carta dei prodotti alimentari delle Provincie Continentali del Regno delle Due Sicilie [Map of food products of the Continental Provinces of the Two Sicilies Kingdom], Napoli 1856. Scale of 60 miles per degree (approximately 1:2,500,000). Also printed on silk, in very rare specimens, the map shows, through 51 figurative symbols, but without statistical data, an overall view on the distribution of raw materials and the various foods produced in the Kingdom of Naples. According to what Ramage writes, Cilento is characterised by the symbols of figs, dried fruit and wine near the coast, while, further inland, abundant salami, fresh fruit, pigs and, to the left of the Sele, corn. On the coast, on the other hand, we can see the symbols of a “Tonnaja” at the height of Agropoli and the capture of “sea fish” in the stretch between Agnone and Acciaroli (changes and enlargements are introduced by the author).

near Centola, on the river Molpa (now Lambro), Capano (2012, p. 158, note 61) on the meaning of “Molpa” – which should indicate, as pointed out by A. Cinque (
Ramage is even more impressed by the “security card”, an annual renewal document that is obligatory for all the citizens of the Kingdom (but “almost unnoticed by the rich”), which they must wear (on pain of imprisonment). Nonetheless, in reference to this, the diary does not express negative evaluations (except indirectly: Yonder p. 103): Ramage, a foreigner travelling in the Kingdom of Naples at the end of the 1920s, knew he had to be careful.
A warranted precaution, considering the anti-government sectarian movements, Indeed, for this reason, Ramage had obtained several letters of recommendation and the issue of a special passport before leaving, thanks to the help of General Carlo Filangieri, Prince of Satriano (see Ramage 2013, p. 25). Concerning this, Carucci (1937), remembering that the revolt in the Cilento of 1799, often violent, caused the birth of the successive movements of 1828 and 1848, highlights that it had not been a popular revolt, because it was animated by As for the failed revolution in the summer of 1828 by the secret society of the Filadelfi, developed within the Carboneria, and the violent repression that followed it, see Oliva 2012, pp. 201–202. De Dominicis (see Ramage 2013, p. 92 and after), a member of the sect of the White Pilgrims – one of the many filiations and transformations of the Carboneria after the revolts of 1821 (see Schiarini online) – was shot in 1828, having taken part in the anti-Bourbon conspiracy. The sentence accused him of “a meeting with a stranger unknown until now” (Galotti, Galzerano, 1998, p. 124), despite the perfect strangeness of Ramage to the political events of the time. Ramage 2013, pp. 83–84. The meaning of the toponym “Bruca” is still obscure, but Ramage’s explanation (which derives it from a nearby forest) corresponds to what was reported by Giustiniani ( After a survey carried out by Schleuning in 1889, only in 1927 was a first excavation carried out, a campaign conducted by Maiuri and financed by the Magna Grecia Society, which was continued in 1935. Wider research began in 1950 (with Pellegrino Claudio Sestieri) while, starting from 1961 (with the excavations of Mario Napoli), a methodical and programmed excavation campaign began (see the Italian Encyclopedia Treccani, sub-item “Velia” by F. Krinzinger, G. Tocco Sciarelli [http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/velia_%28Enciclopedia-dell%27 Ramage (2013, p. 86), however, already sees this hypothesis confirmed in a verse of the While the location of the port at the mouth of the Palistro is certain, what is less certain is that of the other port north of Velia. In this regard, see Capano 2012, pp. 159–160, note 65. Regarding the erroneous identification between Melphes and Buxentum supported among others by Baron Antonini (1745, p. 397), see Romanelli 1815, pp. 368–376, and Capano 2012, pp. 165–166. As for the origin of Bussento (whose name is “taken from an abundant plant in these places, the boxwood, in Greek
Through Ramage’s diary we tried to roughly reconstruct a small geographical monograph of the Cilento before the Unification of Italy in, as much as possible, a holistic vision. Thus a direct connection emerged between the cultural isolation and the difficult relationship of the Cilentans with a hard and hostile environment, even more so because of the presence of problems and territorial fractures punctually recorded by the coeval and, in many ways, still current statistical analysis. The Cilento was in effect one of the “suburbs” of the Kingdom of Naples and Ramage experiences its state of abandonment, seeing the Cilentans deprived of the possibility of better life prospects, taking on a daily struggle for survival, from every point of view. Overcoming the initial prejudices, the Scotsman gets to the point of believing that the dangers to which his friends believed him exposed “exist only in their fervid imagination. I like everything I’ve seen of these people; nothing can exceed the goodness, courtesy and hospitality shown to me without distinction, by all those whom I have approached” (Ramage 2013, p. 89).
It therefore remains for us to reflect on the fact that the story of this travel experience shows the persistence of problems still existing: social marginalisation, bad roads, economic backwardness (between archaic agricultural structures and backward settlement of land), irrational exploitation of slopes, cultural forms of an extensive type, large extension of the productive harvest.
These are hurdles aggravated by the economic changes of post-World War II, with the emigration of thousands of Cilentans and the depopulation of the internal hilly areas, the company division, the process of tourist transformation of the coastal strip, the hydrogeological instability and the inadequate management of road infrastructure, of which the internal areas suffer, often isolated for days after floods. All these circumstances still make Cilento “a singular geographical entity closed” (Mautone 1990, p. 227) and “one of the weakest inland areas of the South” (Yonder p. 235), for which we continue to wait for sustainable development interventions (considering also the existence of the National Park of Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni), accompanied by important infrastructural issues – especially of mobility/transport – of regional and interregional importance, already well identified by the Territorial Regional Plain of Campania (November 2006).
Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3
![The Sele plain in an extract from Sheet 19 of the Atlante geografico del Regno di Napoli delineato per ordine di Ferdinando IV re delle Due Sicilie & C. & C. da Gio. Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni geografo di Sua Maestà e terminato nel 1808 [Geographical Atlas of the Kingdom of Naples outlined by order of Ferdinand IV King of the two Sicilies by Giovanni Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni, Geographer of His Majesty and completed in 1808]. Napoli, 1788–1812 (Firenze, Cartographic Archive, 11th group, Order No. 28, archive folder 85, doc. 5). Scale 1:126,000. As can be seen from the drawing, the plain and the area of Paestum, bounded to the north from the southern foothills of the Picentini Mountains and south from the Alburni Mountains, are impaludate, with riverbeds without embankments and control, and extensive cultivation of poor quality (changes and additions are introduced by the author).](https://sciendo-parsed-data-feed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/6005cb50e797941b18f27779/j_mgrsd-2019-0007_fig_003.jpg?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20230324T134355Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=18000&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA6AP2G7AKP25APDM2%2F20230324%2Feu-central-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=f2ea7cf42ed7a48bd771208aa6e35d702bbe5a7457a77491e60977e516faff6f)
Figure 4
![Benedetto Marzolla, Carta dei prodotti alimentari delle Provincie Continentali del Regno delle Due Sicilie [Map of food products of the Continental Provinces of the Two Sicilies Kingdom], Napoli 1856. Scale of 60 miles per degree (approximately 1:2,500,000). Also printed on silk, in very rare specimens, the map shows, through 51 figurative symbols, but without statistical data, an overall view on the distribution of raw materials and the various foods produced in the Kingdom of Naples. According to what Ramage writes, Cilento is characterised by the symbols of figs, dried fruit and wine near the coast, while, further inland, abundant salami, fresh fruit, pigs and, to the left of the Sele, corn. On the coast, on the other hand, we can see the symbols of a “Tonnaja” at the height of Agropoli and the capture of “sea fish” in the stretch between Agnone and Acciaroli (changes and enlargements are introduced by the author).](https://sciendo-parsed-data-feed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/6005cb50e797941b18f27779/j_mgrsd-2019-0007_fig_004.jpg?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20230324T134355Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=18000&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA6AP2G7AKP25APDM2%2F20230324%2Feu-central-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=dbd524177f525002fd5a5e2f4164872e940452f332aebd9d84309bd3a5319f40)
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