According to Topschoolsintheusa, the recurrence of these elementary structures does not alter the normal prevalence of the more advanced types of dwelling. What we can call the traditional Italic type, and which, due to the presence of certain structural elements, Ferrari calls “latinou,” is given by the masonry construction, with two floors, with a slightly sloping gabled roof, covered with tiles and roof tiles. Access to the upper floor, to save space and ease of construction, is given by external stairs leaning against the facade or on one side of the house and mostly covered, at least at the turn, by a loggia canopy. The house is divided vertically into two joined but usually non-communicating parts: one with the kitchen on the ground and the bedrooms on the upper floor, the other with the stable and the stacked barn. The attic can serve as a warehouse. The facade is given from the side of the eaves of the roof. The accessory buildings are few and small: the oven, the pigsty, the chicken coop, some sheds for tools. This type of house we meet almost unchanged almost everywhere, from the Alps to Calabria and the islands. The variants, as it is understood, are numerous: in many areas of southern Italy and the islands, where the isolated farmhouses are of recent construction, there are no external stairs; in the Sila, on the other hand, there are still some examples of a drawbridge between the staircase and the entrance to the upper floor. The brick roofing can be replaced, where the suitable material abounds, by slabs of limestone or slate (Liguria): the dimensions and internal complexity of the rooms can be much greater in some areas (Val di Chiana). The type is also preserved by the village houses in the oldest villages of peninsular Italy (Abruzzo) and Sicily (Randazzo) and is associated in various combinations both with the alpine forms of the southern valleys, and with the architectural type with lamias or terraces . A common variety in the south has the whole facade cut by a double arched loggia, inside which the stairs also develop. In Agerola and Scala, in the Sorrento peninsula, the height and the roof covering with shingles are reminiscent of Alpine shapes. A common variety in the south has the whole facade cut by a double arched loggia, inside which the stairs also develop. In Agerola and Scala, in the Sorrento peninsula, the height and the roof covering with shingles are reminiscent of Alpine shapes. A common variety in the south has the whole facade cut by a double arched loggia, inside which the stairs also develop. In Agerola and Scala, in the Sorrento peninsula, the height and the roof covering with shingles are reminiscent of Alpine shapes.
These are numerous, but pending findings that allow their classification, they can be grouped under certain common characteristics. The alpine type of the southern slope is usually built, at least in part, in masonry: it consists of two floors and an attic, more or less open, or closed with wooden planking: the roof, with two slightly inclined slopes, it is covered with wooden shingles or stone slabs: roof tiles and roof tiles are of external introduction. The facade tends to settle under the roof chimney. This is very protruding and protects the wooden balconies and balconies that run along the façade, and which have the function (and often particularly suitable forms) of facilitating the drying of the products of the field. Sometimes there is a separate cottage (barn): but in general, as a special construction, it is away from the house, either alone, or in connection with the temporary dwellings staggered at different levels on the mountain. The village house, on the other hand, tends to collect everything under the same roof, house, warehouses, granaries, barn, yard: and develops in height. The division of the rooms in general is done in such a way as to leave the house on the front and the cottage on the back. The prevalence of wood over stone in construction is a symptom of transalpine influences. In fact, it is observed especially in correspondence with the German colonization, in Alto Adige and in some other place (Sappada), while the house in Carnia, Trentino and the Lombard Alps is almost entirely in masonry. In Piedmont, the singular structure of the houses in Courmayeur should be noted, in which a single large room collects the kitchen,
A separate place belongs to the Slavic-German forms of Venezia Giulia, which also have their own variant in the Seven Municipalities of Vicenza: they are usually large massive tenements with a hipped roof, covered with straw, with two or three floors, and few overhangs in timber.
To the aforementioned forms, which better represent the old rural building constructions of our country, must be added those imposed by the needs of more complex systems of agricultural economy. The oldest type of this category is probably that of the court: a meeting of several buildings, houses, stables, barns, etc. around a quadrangular enclosed space; a very widespread type in the Po-Veneto plain, which also occurs in the Campania countryside and, sporadically, in various places in southern Italy and Sicily. It is usually associated with a significant development of animal husbandry or the dairy industry, or the needs of special crops (rice, hemp, sugar beet), and in each of its main areas it has given rise to settlements for multiple families. . Newer structure, for not very different purposes, they have the companies with elements scattered within a space sometimes surrounded by hedges, of the Emilia and Veneto plains: house, barn and barn are separate and take on large dimensions. On the other hand, houses and cottages tend to be gathered together, mostly in leaning buildings, in the Tuscan farm, which responds to the multiple needs of an intensive and promiscuous cultivation with a main square-plan building (portico, loggias) and various minor outbuildings, or with various constructions gathered around the farmer’s or master’s house. The old compact and massive farmhouses of the Roman countryside, the large farms of the grazing plains of the lower course of the Volturno and the Sele also bring us into the presence of types connected with particular forms of agrarian economy.
An element worthy of particular mention is that of the towers and dovecote turrets characteristic of various regions of Italy (western Emilia, Valdarno, Sannio), also because in some cases the tower assumes such proportions as to suggest that its use as a dovecote is derived from an earlier defensive function. Provisions and defense structures are not uncommon, moreover, in the old farms, Fr. ex. in Puglia, in the aforementioned farmhouses in Lazio or in the Lombard and Friulian courts, evidence of a period in which the isolated rural company was forced to face conditions of poor public safety.
