Landscapes, a European Heritage?

Are landscapes heritage? And if so, how can this heritage be considered European? Using a sociosemiotic analysis, the first part recalls how a place can become a landscape through a translation operation converting the landscape into a representation of the place. The paper then looks at what heritage means in the context of a landscape. The second part discusses three case studies illustrating two different ways of translating a place or landscape into heritage, seen as a patrimonialization process. In the first example of the Val d'Orcia in Italy, the landscape is a defining element for the country, both being so closely connected that they simultaneously become heritage. In the other two examples of the Alpujarras in Spain and the Cinque Terre in Italy, the country's functioning is vital to the landscape's survival. In its conclusion, the paper stresses the difficulty of detaching the landscape from the place, as well as the importance of the operator federating the collective actors involved in their safeguarding as heritage.