But Roscigno is not a ghost town; its paths are daily traversed by farmers for work in the fields, and the houses in better condition have been converted into storage for tools and stables for animals; the square is still a meeting and gathering point for many of the old inhabitants, and one can feel in the air the bond that people have with their ancient village.
All this is of great charm and extreme interest to the visitor: the traumatic history, the forced relocations, the functional transformations of the houses, the traditional systems of life and work are reflected in the particular urban structure, the portals, the windows, the iron balconies, the wooden floors, and the walls of living stone.
Old Roscigno has thus become a spontaneous museum that collects various layers of historical documentation; it is not a place where objects are simply preserved or a museum of works of art or natural history: it is a “museum-city,” a space not enclosed by four walls but outdoors, where the perimeter limits are only given by the surrounding countryside; a museum constantly visitable, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a place of reflection where one breathes an atmosphere linked to the biological rhythms of nature. For the scholar, Roscigno is a “global document” of social history, but above all it is an exceptional cultural research laboratory “en plein air.”
