The landscape has been anthropically transformed since the earliest centuries to make it more easily cultivable and habitable: field settlement, road and water network in the plains, construction of terraces and banks to model hills and mountains. These are often widespread works made with local materials and traditional construction techniques that characterise the landscape significantly. The terraces in the past were used for woods and valuable crops such as olive groves, vineyards and citrus groves. The high maintenance costs in the twentieth century led to the gradual abandonment of vast terraced areas, with the evident loss of important historical-cultural and landscape resources. The paper intends to highlight the peculiarities of some Italian agricultural landscapes, considering construction components, historical materials, architectural values, and problems related to disuse and consequent decay, to reflect on the potential that this heritage represents today, if preserved and valorised.