Reading a Captioned Landscape: a Visual Journey Trough the Ficuzza Forest

The Bosco della Ficuzza, Rocca Busambra, Bosco del Cappelliere and Gorgo del Drago Oriented Nature Reserve have been a protected area of the Palermo Metropolitan Region since 2000. Renowned for its significant landscape value, the area comprises several wooded areas bordered to the south by the limestone massif of Rocca Busambra. The history of this landscape is intertwined with human history: it was a royal reserve for the Bourbon court, a source of sustenance for the surrounding areas and a passage territory for a narrow-gauge railway line. The legacy of all these events is visible within the forest, in the infrastructure that remains, or in its traces, in the signs and engravings scattered around. Captions that visually juxtapose different and distant stories should be read to tell a multi-scaled story in which human time and the profound time of the natural element have created a new landscape.