Gli Appennini allo specchio. Modelli insediativi montani dall'altra parte dell'Adriatico

This contribution shows the preliminary results of an analysis of settlement dynamics in the context of central Albania between Roman age, Late Antiquity and Medieval times. The morphology of the central part of Albania differs a lot from the Appenine valley system: while the latter is in fact shaped as a comb, with valleys running mainly perpendicular to the sea, linking the inland areas to the coast, the former is arranged in longitudinal valleys, parallel to the sea and separated by lines of increasingly higher hills. This peculiar morphology concurred to set settlement patterns of the Albanian valleys where, inter-visibility and road networks played a very important role, as the view-shed and network analysis applied to this region show.