Dolomites: A Protected Landscape

A complex and majestic archipelago of peaks that draws the eye to awe, wonder, and enchantment: this is the Dolomites, a unique and precious natural mosaic, among the most extraordinary in the world. Not only a landscape to admire, but a heritage to be carefully protected—with respect and responsibility.

The volume Dolomites. Caring for the Environment, published by the Veneto Region and Marsilio Arte, tells the story of the Dolomites through their deep bond with humankind—a delicate, conscious, and possible coexistence. The stunning photographs by Manuel Cicchetti, accompanied by the words of Antonio G. Bortoluzzi, convey the balance between natural grandeur and human presence, in a visual and literary journey through places that have been lived in, shaped, and preserved—where nature and culture merge in a harmonious and ever-evolving relationship.

Cicchetti’s photographs form the visual heart of this narrative. His gaze, attentive and respectful, not only captures the beauty and grandeur of the Dolomite landscapes, but reinterprets them through a deeply social lens, highlighting traces of human presence: a path carved into the rock, a home nestled in a valley, a winding high-altitude road. His images, the result of careful research conducted in the field, reveal the delicate harmony between the work of time and the work of man, between persistence and transformation, breathing with the rhythm of the seasons. They also recount the evolution of mountain communities over the past century, which have developed an infrastructure network that has marked nature and place with materials, metals, and lines once foreign to these altitudes.