PROBLEMS RELATED TO THE USE OF THE HISTORY CARTOGRAPHY

Lo scritto – con esempi sulla Toscana – esamina: i problemi relativi alla individuazione della cartografia precedente la Carta d’Italia IGM, dei secoli XV-XIX, conservata in numerosi archivi e biblioteche d’Italia e d’Europa, e alle diverse qualità geometriche e contenutistiche delle tante categorie di rappresentazioni specialmente prodotte per finalità amministrative (per i diversi bisogni del potere statale e delle forze economico- sociali); affronta la questione della loro corretta interpretazione ai fini di una loro utilizzazione scientifica (anche per l’azione pratica) nella geografia e negli altri settori disciplinari, con esempi sui rischi dell’uso acritico della cartografia compresa quella geodetica contemporanea.The text – with some examples about Tuscany – considers the problems related to the characterization of the cartography before the “Carta d’Italia” IGM (15th -19th centuries), which is kept in many Italian and European archives and libraries. The text examines various geometric qualities and emphasizes the content of many categories of representations especially those produced for administrative purposes (for different uses in public or social-economic institutions). The text faces up the issue of their correct interpretation for scientific and practical aims in geography and other subjects, with examples of the risks of an uncritical use of cartography as in the contemporary geodesic cartography

Knowledge for the Enhancement between Memory and Contemporaneity: Pilgrim’s Old and New Routes in Historical Maps (15th-19th Centuries)

The text analyses the cartography produced between the late Middle Ages and the Unification of Italy (and the Carta d’Italia of the Military Survey Office): among the most important categories of documented sources for the history of viability and the area. The original maps (almost all hand-drawn) prevail, drawn for the ancient states or upper classes for the purpose of military or civil management, control and enhancement of the territory.  Beyond the metrics and topographic contents, the utilisation of historical maps requires research in public and private land registries of Italy and other countries, which is not always easy. It furthermore requires a rational critical evaluation of the products and with this the necessary contextualisation of administrative and political-economic-social strategic practice to which they belong. The text addresses historical cartography (general maps of various scales and road types) used for the study of viability, including the numerous pilgrim routes that cross Tuscany from north to south, passing through the Appennino, through the crossings of Lunigiana and Valtiberina. The official Tuscan products, as well as those of its sub-regions and communities (whose road network is highlighted) stand out among others, and also singular street routes, particularly those drawn during the second half of the 18th century and the first decades of the 20th century when the geometric cadastre was completed. Almost all of them were needed to be able to rule the territory and often to plan and carry out important public work as well as modernisation of communication infrastructure

Paesaggio e territorio, il possibile contributo della geografia. Concetti e metodi

La geografia contribuisce alla conoscenza dell'intreccio territorio-paesaggio – vero “archivio complesso” (Lucio Gambi), “documento storico” composto da “tante storie contemporaneamente” (Paola Sereno), “una sorta di memoria in cui si registra e si sintetizza la storia dei disegni territoriali degli uomini” (Massimo Quaini) – con la linea di ricerca strutturalista/oggettuale. Questa è orientata sulla costruzione di rappresentazioni/interpretazioni, per quanto possibile generali, di forme e contenuti territoriali, con appoggio dell’analisi su base regionale. L'orientamento è confacente alle normative e pianificazioni istituzionali sul territorio-paesaggio, che riattualizzano la valenza descrittiva-interpretativa della geografia, con la tradizione rinnovata – per concetti e metodi – da Gambi, Quaini e Sereno, con riaggregazione della geografia paesistica a quella regionale alle scale sub-regionali e locali. Per la conoscenza strutturale di territorio-paesaggio, il ruolo della geografia diventa fondamentale, purché l’analisi metta a fuoco gli specifici processi storici che lo hanno generato, abbinando lo studio dei luoghi e del patrimonio (intere categorie e singoli beni culturali), con la geografia regionale. Tale analisi deve avere uno svolgimento di tipo temporale e deve utilizzare metodologie, tecniche, strumenti e fonti – sul terreno, in biblioteca, in archivio e in laboratorio – adatte di volta in volta alla trattazione dell’argomento.Geography can help knowing the territory-landscape nexus – a true “complex archive”(Lucio Gambi), a “historic document” made of “many stories at the same time” (Paola Sereno), “a sort of memoir recording and summarising the history of the territorial designs of humans” (Massimo Quaini) – thanks to a structuralist-objectivist line of research. This is focused on the construction of representations/interpretations, as general as possible, of territorial forms and contents, supported by a regional scale analysis. Such orientation is appropriate to the new Italian regulatory and planning framework for territory and landscape, reviving the traditional descriptive and interpretive value of geography renewed – in concepts and methods – by Gambi, Quaini and Sereno, and re-aggregating landscape and regional geography, at the sub-regional and local scale. For a structural knowledge of territory-landscape, in fact, Geography becomes crucial, provided that its analysis outlines the specific historical processes that generated it, coupling the study of places and heritage (whole categories and single cultural assets) to regional geography. This requires a diachronic approach and methods, techniques, tools and sources – on field as well as in libraries, archives and laboratories – strictly adequate to the topic each time addressed

Chapter Massimo Quaini: geografia storica, fonti, conoscenze territoriali e loro uso politico e socio-culturale

Quaini's commitment is aimed – with the development of the Gambian concept – towards the construction of a critical and operational historical geography (usable for the aware and sustainable management, institutional planning and socio-cultural use of territories), through innovative theoretical-methodological reflections and concrete case studies: with a focus on the landscape-territorial historicity and the heritage of regions and places, and openness to interdisciplinarity and local knowledge, integrating – with exemplary critical contextualization – the written and graphic documentary sources with those of the terrain

Le fortificazioni della Toscana Tirrenica: metodologie e fonti dell'indagine geo-storica

[EN] The research about Tyrrhenian Tuscany fortifications – more than 150 structures studied with Anna Guarducci and Marco Piccardi – is a multidisciplinary and complex topic that requires methods and sources typical of geographical-historical research. This because of various environmental and landscape peculiarity of Tyrrhenian Tuscany and because of her historical sequence from Medieval Age to nowadays. In Tyrrhenian Tuscany – thanks to its strategic and business importance – although low population, cereal and pastoral “latifondo”, the marshes and few settlements, a dense fortifications system was gradually developed until the unification of Italy. This study starts from the first researches on Maremma fortifications on Seventies-Eighties of last century, and they also begins from following studies concerning all coastal area or single places, buildings and small areas. This research take into consideration those researchs methods and subjects. But because of the study area extension a larger range of printed and unpublished sources was analyzed. The set of documents was composed by maps, iconographies, photographies, aerial photographies, territorial and literaly studies, etc. The political and administrative fragmentation of Tyrrhenian Tuscany explains the position of the sources (about fortifications) in libraries and archives of Tuscany (Massa, Lucca, Firenze, Pisa, Livorno, Piombino, Siena, Grosseto, Orbetello), of Italy (Genova, Modena, Roma e Napoli) and of foreign countries (Simancas, Parigi, Vienna e Praga); and in municipal and state or authorithy archives too. The partition expalains also the local and regional nature of the most studies. All these documents are often thematic and incomplete, and have been completed with the study of the present contexts (toponyms, buildings and direct evidences of inhabitants), in order to identify and locate the fortifications. This comparative analysis, together with measurements allowed by cartography, has allowed the recognition of the position of more than 30 towers have now disappeared or reduced to ruin.Rombai, L. (2015). Le fortificazioni della Toscana Tirrenica: metodologie e fonti dell'indagine geo-storica. En Defensive architecture of the mediterranean: XV to XVIII centuries. Vol. I. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 151-158. https://doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2015.2015.1688OCS15115

Paesaggio e territorio, il possibile contributo della geografia. Concetti e metodi

Geography can help knowing the territory-landscape nexus – a true “complex archive”(Lucio Gambi), a “historic document” made of “many stories at the same time” (Paola Sereno), “a sort of memoir recording and summarising the history of the territorial designs of humans” (Massimo Quaini) – thanks to a structuralist-objectivist line of research. This is focused on the construction of representations/interpretations, as general as possible, of territorial forms and contents, supported by a regional scale analysis. Such orientation is appropriate to the new Italian regulatory and planning framework for territory and landscape, reviving the traditional descriptive and interpretive value of geography renewed – in concepts and methods – by Gambi, Quaini and Sereno, and re-aggregating landscape and regional geography, at the sub-regional and local scale. For a structural knowledge of territory-landscape, in fact, Geography becomes crucial, provided that its analysis outlines the specific historical processes that generated it, coupling the study of places and heritage (whole categories and single cultural assets) to regional geography. This requires a diachronic approach and methods, techniques, tools and sources – on field as well as in libraries, archives and laboratories – strictly adequate to the topic each time addressed

Abbazie e paesaggi medievali in Toscana

The volume collects the contributions of the 'study day’ held on June 16, 2010 at the University of Florence on Abbeys and medieval landscapes in Tuscany, that is, on the forms of the territory that have structured the ways of life in the countryside of our region for centuries. Today an infatuation is observed for that kind of landscape, which is confirmed by a lack of interest for its conservation or for transformations respectful of the rules that produced it. It is therefore appropriate to submit to the historic method a synthetic view of the medieval landscape, from the ancient premises to the economic reasons that led to the monastic and feudal forms, up to the appearance of a new structure appreciated for its useful beauty, in a persistent substratum of mysterious storytelling. Tuscany allows multiple evidence of what actually survives of the pervasive order established in the Middle Ages also for its exemplary literary and iconographic representations, both contemporary and of the medieval times