The Garden Intra Moenia

The village of Tortorella is full of gardens intra moenia (inside the walls), an attribute related to particular features of the town, built on a giant limestone oval

Looking at the descriptions of the country in 1400, you may notice that there have been changes, it is the same urban layout: there has been an expansion beyond the old walls.
The circular perimeter and the alleys remain intact. The houses you see on the right, they were built around the city wall and this allows us to retrace the original route.
Let’s watch also the gardens inside the walls that you encounter along the way: the lands were just outside the walls, in the valley and the hills in front of the city. At dawn it was possible to watch the women and the men, who through the “selecia”, went to work in the fields of vines, olive trees and orchards.
In the event of a siege, however, it was necessary to have the vegetable gardens ” intra moenia” (inside the walls):

Plan with reconstruction of the village in the 18th century.

for this reason, when the people could not bring fruit or firewood from the countryside, put on the donkey a lot of ground; in this way were created interior vegetable gardens on the calcareous stone, fenced with retaining walls, still visible, characterized by simple elements in terra cotta and wooden doors, which marked the property.