Stating that landscape is a publica utilitas means that landscapes are public goods. The analysis of common good as publica utilitas ( Settis 2013) is considered pivotal, not just because it pursues a historical analysis, but also because it is based on a political and social definition of landscape. In the second section, Landscapes and the common good, the notion of common good is analysed by tracing its origins in the ancient Greek city-state up to the Middle Age management of the towns, with reference to Roman Law and the Medieval communes. On the basis of this definition, my analysis focuses on the perception of landscape as a common good, its management as a common, and the institutions of CPRs. One of the most comprehensive definitions of landscape is provided in the European Landscape Convention, which states that landscape “means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” ( Council of Europe 2000a: Article 1). The first section, Landscape: a debated definition, explains how the concept of landscape has evolved in the literature, in the humanities in particular, from a view and a beautiful scene, towards a cultural relationship between the environment and human beings. The paper does not aim at a complete review of these notions in the literature, but develops an analysis of how the current idea of landscape, by overcoming its scenery-based characteristics, can be defined, at the same time, in terms of the common good, the commons and CPRs. This paper addresses the relationships between the concept of landscape and the notions of the common good, the commons and commons pool resources (CPRs). I integrated these approaches by arguing that landscape is a domain in relation to which human rights can be claimed, and that landscape can be considered as a right to which human beings are entitled. Three approaches to landscape as a right have been distinguished: the right to landscape as a perceived landscape (a collective right), as a right to the environment, and a right for addressing human rights. Even if the concept is new in the literature, and a right to landscape is not recognized as a right per se, it is already implicated and studied in many international rights laws. The analysis carried out in the paper leads, in the end, to the possibility of defining the ‘right to landscape’. The paper relies on an excursus through the theories and legal documents, with a specific regard to the theoretical foundations of these different notions. community gardens) I argue that landscape can be defined as a common good, can include the commons, and the collective management of lands and common pool resources institutions. Through theoretical research supported by practical examples (e.g. the European Landscape Convention, the Latin American Initiative for Landscape and the Unesco Florence Declaration) I analyse the similarity between the notion of landscape and the concepts of common good, the management of commons and the commons pool resources institutions. On the basis of this approach to landscape studies, and by considering contemporary documents on landscape (i.e. I consider landscape as a complex process in which human beings (with their history and culture) and their environment are mutually defined. This paper analyses how the current concept of landscape, which overcomes a scenery-based characterisation and a confinement to classical aesthetics and art, relates to the notions of the common good, commons and commons pool resources (CPRs).

Landscape definition