The interlacing arches system in Salerno and Amalfi Coast

In historic architectural panorama of the Mediterranean area, especially on the Amalfi Coast – also including in it Salerno – there are some built episodes of special interest: they are examples in which the recurring motif of interlacing arches draws flat or convex surfaces, with a typically taste of Arab-Norman matrix that, in the Middle Ages, strongly characterizes the architectural language of this territory. Conceived, in most cases, to respond to some needs of structural nature, the twisted arches take on, over time, obvious aesthetic connotations, by virtue of an intrinsically geometrical coherence, capable of synthesizing, in a single physical model, reason and feeling. And so, in a gradual process of defining the architectural configuration, the pure geometric composition is transformed from abstract matrix in symbolic form. So, starting from a reconnaissance of the Amalfitan structures in which the system of interlaced arches is used, the paper is intended to propose a geometrical and spatial interpretation to correctly understand the logic behind the conception of those forms, in which is expressed an architectural lexicon typical of the Amalfi Coast. For this purpose, using the digital modeling, and in general the graphical representation, it tries to decode the generative process of the interlaced arches pattern, thus revealing its true essence.