Hallo everyone! A long time since I wrote anything here. But on reading Jorge's last Post I felt that I should sound some warning bells. He asks: " To what extent landscape imageability determines landscape character?" Quite a question that one. Landscape imageability (I suppose that Anglo-Saxons know how to pronounce it) seems to me a problematic concept and to look for how an even more problematic concept like "landscape character' may determine it looks to me a task like that of a dog trying to bite his tail or, more elegant, a circulus vitiosus.

True it may be just a question of words and as my friend Horatius said :

 "Words will not fail when the matter is well considered."; but too many obscure words may obscure the matter totally.

     The problemacy is not just because of 'landscape character' , the original 'place character' is as problematic (not to say dubios). The inefable dictionaries are not much help, as usual, the most appropriate I found between the multitude of definitions is:

"The combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another" I supose that 'place' or 'landscape' come under 'thing'. Hence, "the combination of features of a place that distinguishes that place from another'' . I could come up with a list of features of a certain place but to understand how features combine with each other is not at all easy. Perhaps if one drops the ambition of combining features and stays contento with just a list of features that distinguishes one place from another?

 Another definition that may be more to the point : 'A characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something'; "each town has a quality all its own". So, if one just were to say "The characteristic property of  this landscape is its…" the text may be clearer than writing "the character of this landscape is…".

In Italian, a very civilized language, believe me,  we can get round this problemacy because 'character' is both 'carattere' and 'caratteristica", the first used more in connection with a person's character and the second closer to what we want of  'place character'. 

      Going back to the begining, the question: "To what extent landscape imageability determines landscape character?" , cannot be answered properly unless we have clear ideas about what both words mean  and, most specially, (a naging possibility) taking care that 'imageability' and 'character' do not turn out to be the same thing, in which case…