Descriptio Urbis Measuring and representing the modern and contemporary city

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1 CROMA - Dipartimento e Facoltà di Economia - Università Roma Tre Comune di Roma - Archivio Storico Capitolino MiBAC - Direzione generale per gli Archivi MiBAC - Archivio di Stato di Roma Telemme, UMR 6570 Université de Provence - CNRS Université de Paris XII-Val de Marne - Institut J. B. Say Descriptio Urbis Measuring and representing the modern and contemporary city International Conference Rome, March 2008 Ara Pacis Museum, via di Ripetta 190 Faculty of Economics, via Silvio d'amico 77

2 DESCRIPTIO URBIS MEASURING AND REPRESENTING THE MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY CITY Rome, March 2008 ABSTRACTS SESSION A Cartographic techniques and products, XVIII-XX centuries pag. 3 SESSION B Cadastral systems and other census tools, XVIII-XX centuries» 18 SESSION B Urban Political Economy and Cadastre in Ottoman and post-ottoman Towns» 23 SESSION B1 Stratigrafia dell insediamento urbano: i catasti come strumento di lettura storica» 29 SESSION B2 How far back? The use of cadastral maps in reconstructing the urban past» 38 SESSION C Historical cities atlases» 48 SESSION C A Modern City Atlas. The case of Rome» 56 SESSION C2 Between city and country. Dynamics of change, perspectives of governance» 61 SESSION D1 Coordonner le disparate» 75 SESSION D2 Information systems and urban history» 95 SESSION D3 Il ruolo dei Sistemi informativi territoriali per lo studio della città storica» 108 SESSION D4 Les SIG renouvellent-ils le rapport des historiens à l espace urbain?» 113 PROJECT PRESENTATION» 121 2

3 Session A CARTOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES AND PRODUCTS, XVIII-XX CENTURIES Session organiser: BRIGITTE MARIN, Université de Provence Further to three centuries of progressive development of perspective urban views and bird s eye views, and starting from the XVIII st century (when the principal European towns published the first accurate great topographic maps), we have witnessed the evolution of the methods of cartographic representation, accompanied by an important diffusion of urban maps, and supports of varied formats. This session will focus on the analysis of the contemporary cartographic products in all of their aspects, which gravitate around four principal topics: scientific and technical tools, adopted graphic solutions, their progressive codification; contexts of the maps production, from the circumstances of the request to the operators; diffusion of the urban maps according to different modalities, editorial in particular; the practical uses of these cartographic products. Session abstracts ANDREA IACOMONI Segni e spessori della cartografia premoderna Se nel Medioevo la cartografia assumeva essenzialmente il carattere di compendio grafico di un sapere universale e nel campo della iconografia l astrazione simbolica prevaleva sulla descrizione; nel Rinascimento si assiste a una evoluzione della rappresentazione con la prevalenza di una immagine realistica in prospettiva a volo ed un maggior realismo figurativo con l indicazione chiara delle gerarchie enfatizzando alcuni edifici (in particolare i luoghi di potere); mentre è a partire dalla metà del Settecento che si sostituirà invece una rappresentazione planimetrica. Questa ha i suoi maggiori esempi nelle numerose realizzazione di piante di città che fino alla fine dell Ottocento, rappresentano, evidenziandola, la particolare forma urbis. Queste carte appartengono a quella fase che può essere descritta come della rappresentazione della dimensione, in cui ancora è ben evidente quello stretto legame con il luogo geografico e naturale, la gerarchia tra quelle funzioni commerciali, politiche e religiose che ne determinavano la configurazione degli spazi, il ruolo all interno del territorio più ampio, ma soprattutto che si rifletteva nella sua identità. Successivamente il linguaggio della carta muterà notevolmente, specialmente nell ultimo secolo, fino a portare ad una disumanizzazione dell immagine. Proprio la cartografia redatta a partire dal XVIII secolo sarà oggetto di tale contributo, evidenziando come questa rappresenti una narrazione della dimensione della città, che attraverso le mappe (illustrazione e comprensione della natura spaziale) acquisisce il suo peso specifico. Questo è ben evidente nelle piante di città realizzate nel periodo cosiddetto premoderno (simbolica o metrica) fortemente ricche di significati e di informazioni, grazie alla capacità dei cartografi, profondi lettori ed esperti interpreti della città e del territorio. Queste mappe, fino agli ultimi decenni dell Ottocento, uniscono ancora elementi scientifici, simbolici ed artistici, e sono allusive della particolarità dei luoghi; il prodotto definisce la città e la sua stessa idea attraverso la descrizione delle sue qualità, ma soprattutto le mappe trasmettono uno speciale senso della dimensione. Qui descrivere e rappresentare sono momenti inscindibili di una complessa azione euristica e progettuale. È interesse quindi analizzare ed approfondire i metodi e le tecniche delle rappresentazioni urbane sette-ottocentesche che precedono le grandi trasformazioni moderne. In queste figure la città rappresenta sempre l elemento centrale, dove spesso limiti precisi tendono ad esprimere una conclusione di tipo geometrico, decorativo e di testi descrittivi delle cose notevoli, oltre alle vedute dei monumenti (ad esempio nella pianta del Fantozzi del 1843 Firenze è racchiusa in un cerchio fig. 1); la città stessa è sempre posizionata al centro del foglio, ma soprattutto è limitata in larghezza e in altezza, con una scala spesso contenuta, per fornire una visione densa e globale del rapporto città/territorio. Ma soprattutto il senso della dimensione è rappresentato dall esaltazione di quei segni distintivi del ruolo e dell immagine stessa della città; dalle mura o dalla gerarchia urbana, definita dall enfatizzazione grafica dei principali edifici. Inoltre sono fondamentali i rapporti della città con il suo contesto, quel territorio naturale formato da colline, fiumi, valli pianure ben rapportati alla città. Le mura quindi oltre a rappresentare il limite fisico della città, diventano l elemento peculiare, ricco di spessori e di significati, 3

4 simbolo di una dimensione sociale e culturale tenuta insieme dalle infinite pulsioni della civitas. Inoltre nelle varie rappresentazioni queste divengono segno enfatizzato e immagine riconoscibile, come nella Plan de la ville de vienne et de les fouxbourgs del 1810 (fig. 2) in cui si sovrappongo le due cerchie di mura, una più compatta e una più delicata; o nelle numerose rappresentazioni della città di Lucca. Tali cartografie evidenziano la forma urbana della città esaltandola nella sua particolarità, di pianura, di crinale di costa, di colle, descrivendo e rappresentando anche la sua giacitura territoriale, enfatizzando le valli, le acque o i canali. Lo stesso rapporto con il territorio si evidenzia in una carta di Roma del 1839 in cui la città compatta lungo il corso sinuoso del Tevere e protetta dei colli, è delimita dalle mura Aureliane che cingono un territorio urbano ben più vasto. In tali descrizioni è evidente una particolare cura del dettaglio grafico, in un abile miscela tra le masse del costruito e gli spazi aperti, in cui il verde è tracciato con le stesse grafie usate per le colture agricole esterne, in cui la carta riporta spesso anche le orditure dei campi e le delimitazioni arboree. Proprio questa risulta essere una caratteristica fondamentale che definisce la cartografia premoderna, in cui il limite tra città e campagna non è così netto, ma l urbano e il rurale si integrano fino a penetrare le mura, sottili segni nel territorio (si veda ad esempio una Pianta della cittˆ di Milano dei fratelli Bettoli del 1826 fig. 3 o la Pianta della cittˆ di Firenze di Giuseppe Poggi del 1855 fig. 4). Si sottolinea così quel rapporto città/campagna che era territoriale, ma allo stesso tempo strutturale; ed è proprio la complementarietà e l equilibrio tra l urbano e il rurale, oltre che una lettura delle dimensioni e dei rapporti, il principale messaggio della visione di tali carte. In queste tavole gli stessi edifici che oggi chiameremo cospicui sono evidenziati con l inserimento della pianta, a simboleggiare un ulteriore rapporto complesso tra l edificio pubblico e il suo contesto. Ma volgendo lo sguardo a rappresentazioni europee dello stesso periodo, noteremo come ad esempio la città di Parigi sia rappresentata nella sua vastità, in una pianta del 1827 e la incompletezza grafica, nonostante alcuni tratti comuni alle precedenti cartografie, ne impoverisca la lettura, avvicinandola a cartografie più tecniche (ad esempio gli stessi monumenti sono evidenziati semplicemente con tratti più scuri); o nella mappa di Londra di Davies dove ad una minuziosa descrizione grafica si sovrappone una ulteriore carta calligrafica con l individuazione dei luoghi notevoli, esprimendo la stessa forza di connotare gli spazi. Si evidenzia in questo tipo di cartografia una rappresentazione dell idea di città nel suo essere sistema, oggetto concluso nel limite fisico e nei rapporti con il territorio circostante, in cui la rappresentazione planimetrica evidenzia un diverso modo di trasmettere l immagine urbana (a differenza dei vedutisti seicenteschi) e diviene sempre più supporto conoscitivo. La cartografia premoderna è sempre una rappresentazione delle qualità, e quindi della città consolidata nelle sue dimensioni; in contrapposizione ad una rappresentazione delle quantità di un perenne cambiamento proprio della cartografia moderna. Per i motivi sopra descritti, queste cartografie generalmente a media scala sono utili per i nostri studi per la ricognizione delle strutture di lunga durata del territorio, contenendovi tutte le invarianti rappresentate dai valori, permanenze e sedimenti, individuando quella Loi de la persinstance du plan di Lavediana memoria. KIRILL NAZARENKO, NICKOLAY ROGULIN Maps and verbal descriptions of Saint Petersburg in the 1 st half of 18 th century Originality and uniqueness of Saint Petersburg will be, that this city, in a decade after foundation has apprehended capital functions and subsequently was under construction as capital of the educated absolute monarchs possessing significant means for an embodiment of their plans. Such features of city as regularity of building, use of standard projects, regulation of all parts of a municipal accomplishment and a life of the population in general, resulted from special position of Saint Petersburg. It is natural, that for creation of city with a regular lay-out fixing plans of already existing building were required such as «The Admiralty Fortress» (1736) and axonometrical «Siegheim Plan» ( ). As a result of activity of architects there was created a number of perspective plans, as a rule, in several variants: plan by Leblond (1717), «The Admiralty Island» (1738), Truskot plan, more known as the plan of M. I. Mahaev ( ). The special type of plans of city in which both perspective and fixating features were combined has appeared also. They have been intended for distribution abroad and presentation of new European capital in connection with its 50 anniversary. At last, Saint Petersburg caused steadfast interest in a military-political management of neighbors of Russia, first of all, at Sweden. Therefore some of versions of city maps were those made by the Swedish officials with the investigation purposes. Specific feature of this version of cartographical sources will be, that they sometimes reflected obviously incorrect data, specially given to the Swedish officials by Russians. 4

5 In themselves any plan of city substantially "silent" also can "start talking" only in case of studying verbal descriptions of the capital. To the most known descriptions concerns, for example «The Description of Saint Petersburg» completed by A.I.Bogdanov in For the first time this description has been issued only in 1779, after serious changes by V.G.Ruban. The first edition of A.I.Bogdanov's manuscript was only in There is a lot of descriptions of Saint Petersburg in diaries and memoirs of contemporaries, mainly foreigners. It is obvious, that verbal descriptions contain quite natural incompleteness and discrepancy that may be successfully compensated by cartographical sources. CATERINA FRANCHINI The city according to the military topographers of Savoy By the end of the eighteenth century the city of Turin is the practice field for the cadets of the Theoretical and practical schools of artillery and fortifications, now recognised as a centre of excellence for research and technical-scientific teaching. On the tree-lined avenues of the Valentino future topography engineers will draw lines with the bojine and will measure horizontal and diagonal distances; on the batterment between Porta Nuova and the citadel they will practise the use of the square and the measuring of angles, they will start to measure some flat figures on the ground, they will copy the fronts of the fortification with their external works and those "objects" oriented towards S. Salvatore and the river Po. Finally, between Porta di Po and Porta Palazzo they will perform the simplest operations relating to the Praetorian drawing board and execute the designs of the "forts" existing on the town hill. The above text is described in: Progetto delle operazioni da farsi cogli stromenti/ della Geometria pratica in Campagna (Project of the operations to perform with the instruments of practical geometry in the countryside - ASTo, Camerale, Segreteria di Guerra, Carte d Artiglieria, reg. XXIV, ff ) drafted in Turin, May 21, 1797, by Luigi Gianotti: successor to the famous "painter of battles" Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti chair of the topographical drawing at the Royal Schools. In the margin of the programme are the notes of the Director, Gerolamo Francesco Zino, who recommended to extend the exercise with the Praetorian drawing board at the survey of the rolling hills. The Director s comments prove what is now of paramount importance to know about conducting a geometric survey even in those areas not easily accessible. In the Savoy States, the tools and methods for modern topography are scientifically codified in the Theoretical and practical schools of artillery and fortifications (April 16t h, 1739 to July 1, 1799) and in the Royal office of topography (April 21, 1738 to 1799 approx.); established under the executive body of the Savoy army: the Azienda d artiglieria fabbriche e fortificazioni. It is, in fact, within these institutions, through training manuals and practice, where the specialisation in topography of military engineers is accomplished. The context in which one places the process of affirmation of military topography takes into account the fact that in the eighteenth century logistics comes to the forefront as a decisive factor in conflicts. Especially with the wars of succession, the role of communications and procurement becomes vital. The growing size of the armies makes the graphic description of the territory essential, without which the planning of a march, a siege or a camp is impossible. Therefore, the military engineers, until now mainly responsible for the fortifications, must extend their skills to the representation of the territory. In times of war they are called upon to draw up plans of sieges and battles and to conduct the military land surveys taking note not only of the works of defence, but also of their surroundings as related to the scheduling of war actions: the military topographer it is required to be able to represent possible geographies for still invisible armies. Fundamental tools of knowledge of the territory and its resources are the written reports or memoirs (ASTo, Archivio Topografico Segreto, Relazioni, memorie, descrizioni topografiche manoscritte); these are necessary for the scheduling of not only military but also economic and political strategies of the State. In the memoirs those man-made features that can not be represented graphically on paper are also described, for example: the conditions of roads and settlements, the demographic situation, the economic and also moral resources of the populations, on which the possibility of housing and supply of an army largely depend. From the second half of the eighteenth century in the Savoy Schools the operational methods of the topographical survey and graphics techniques receive a broader systemization at the level of treaties. The fundamental turning point occurs with the editing ( ) by Papacino d Antoni of the six books Dell'Architettura Militare per le Regie Scuole di Artiglieria, e Fortificazione (On the military architecture for the Royal schools of artillery, and fortifications). In particular, relating to the topography of the first book 5

6 (Della Fortificazione Regolare , BRT, Militari 288) and the second book (Dell'Attacco, e Difesa delle Piazze Regolari..., BRT, Militari 288), respectively by Carlo Andrea Rana (teacher of mathematics) and Andrea Ignazio Bozzolino (from 1769 director of the theoretical School), are crucial because they determine two new topics: the colouring of the design with its graphic symbolism, and the topographic survey of a site around a fortification. Bozzolino provides a description, "easy and practical", on how to handily proceed in the general surveying of the "country" around a fortress: the engineer will perform the lap of the "piazza" (fort) taking care to note what he finds on the extensions of the alignments of a "face" of a bastion; he should mark, orography and the nature of the land, roads, homes and chapels and especially those sites that can be used for housing cavalry or infantry. In the part devoted to the Disegno in picciolo Rana offers a systematic description of rules, colours and cartographic signs to be adopted for maps that in addition to the fortification should contain prominent things in the surroundings of the same. Among the "prominent things" are certainly the populated centres and the religious architecture. The "conspicuous places" surrounded by walls are represented by drawing the plan of their homes; those without walls, on the other hand, are to be reported in the same way as "places not substantial" but with a parish, or rather drawing a small tower placed above a circle coloured in red indicating the centre of the village, the circle must be accompanied by the design of some houses in proportion to the number of existing homes. The roofs of the houses and towers are dark red and black in the shaded part. The chapels are drawn like a single house with a small cross on the front or else, they are represented on the map by a rectangle, coloured all in red, with a black cross. From this textbook the effort is initiated towards the technical definition of a uniform graphical code, which will come to typify the Piemontese military cartography. MARGARIDA TAVARES DA CONCEIÇÃO Military engineering and urban surveying: a Portuguese treatise on cartography Since the beginning of the Early Modern Age the written coding pressure had produced some printed books about building construction and land surveying procedures. Mostly written by mathematicians and later on by architects and engineers, those elementary texts focused the geometrical basic procedures about land and building surveying. Their main proposes was to transmit a set of rules explaining how to make indirect measurement of distances and heights. Anyway, that kind of explanations starts to appear in elementary geometry handbooks. When architects or engineers started to write about their own disciplines, such as fortification and architectural treatises, they usually included a chapter on elementary geometry and measuring rules. Other humanists related to architectural writing printed special textbooks on this subject, in the sixteenth century. Treatises about measurement, proposing new procedures and techniques, produced a copious technical literature, even if those methods were not very accurate and operational in the field. That kind of improvement was of great interest to military engineers, who needed real surveys to plan interventions in the battlefields or in the urban environment. Also, they had to draw the relating maps. Surveying and drawing techniques were related, but technical drawing skills were more recent, waiting for more accurate topographical procedures. Due to its mathematical education, required to design sophisticated bastioned walls, military engineers were especially involved on those matters. This script fits a particular treatise on cartography, written by Manuel de Azevedo Fortes, the Portuguese royal chief engineer between 1719 and He graduated in philosophy in France and Italy, and he returned home to teach mathematics at the military academy. Becoming its director, he undertook the military engineering school reformation and published the treatise on fortification titled The Portuguese Engineer ( ), recalling similar book titles pointing out specific national engineering schools. But, even before, and among other works, he wrote a textbook, one of the first on this subject, the Treatise on the method of making geographical maps, printed in 1722, so in the same year of Buchottes s treatise Les Règles du Dessin He wrote this text, even though not as a military engineer and army officer, but as a specialist on Geography and member of the Royal Academy of History. In fact, the complete title of this treatise is quite long and descriptive, exposing completely its pretended contents and purpose. It starts Treatise about the easiest and accurate way, which reveals two main concerns: the ability to teach and manage the cartographic skills, but mainly the accuracy of the final result, requiring the use of some precision proceedings. Continuing with the headline, to make geographical 6

7 maps from the land and from the sea, that means mapping territories with a radical different nature, implying nowadays very different techniques. But the geographical scale was not enough and, as an engineer, he adds to his purpose to undertake the plans of war places, towns and buildings, which indicates that he wants to deal with quite various scales: geographical mapping continents and seas, countries and provinces and topographical surveying with military and civil goals, measuring towns and its surrounding fields. Zooming again, he mentions the need to know how to measure a single building. If mapping provinces, fields and cities could be understood as geographical and chorographical jobs, respectively, when he reaches the buildings scale, it is the task of the architect or the engineer that is required, the architectural survey. But even in geographical and chorographical levels, the classical and literary disciplines were not able to reach this surveying and representation aim. That is why he starts the book explaining as the Royal Academy of History had committed him in the mapping of the Portuguese countries, which means European and overseas lands, a quite large and impossible commitment. But what he really complains about is the great difficulty of doing it without a good number of well-trained engineers. At least from the sixteenth to nineteenth century, that was a task due to the engineer, not to the geographers. Continuing, he adds, surveying with instruments and without instruments, a very interesting issue, because he had to think as a geographer, yet he could not forget his role as a military engineer. This shows a kind of a professional specialist who needs to work both in peace and war times. When working in the enemy field, sometimes engineers and soldiers had to do the task just with paper and, if they were lucky, with a string or rope. The title description is not finished yet: it finally ends to serve as an instruction to the making of the geographical maps of the Ecclesiastic and Temporal History based upon the best authors. This long headline explanation is meaningful and defends its huge purpose, dealing with the Geography and the History levels, needing a great help from those who had mathematical training. Manuel Fortes wants to instruct engineers to be real topographers in the field, to do geographical operations. He says he doesn t want to write a innovative book, showing new measurement or drawing techniques, but only collecting information and write the first handbook in Portuguese language on this subject. He quotes his sources: his own large practical experience and certain texts on this subject from the renowned French mathematicians and Euclid s editors, Claude Milliet Deschales (Cursus seu Mundus mathematicus, Lyon, 1674) and Jacques Ozanam (Methode de lever des plans..., Paris, 1693). The treatise teaching purpose explains the fact that it s a portable book, yet without any kind of illustration or drawing figure. This could be explained by the fact that it s not a very original book, on contrary, it s a new text with very traditional contents. This treatise teaches the most common procedures, explaining with very simple words the main procedures for a correct land surveying and mapping. The instructions starts stressing those tasks requiring a lot of time and a very exact method; the author points out, specially during a large survey, the need of using the same method, taking the same point or petipé, managing latitudes and longitudes, and for a more accurate process, using trigonometric calculus and instruments. He organizes this handbook with chapters to state the main procedures and afterwards, through several problems, he demonstrates the way to solve them. Which means showing the practical use of the instrument or procedure and not its scientific or technical construction. This book was made for engineers, not for mathematicians. He starts explaining the basic procedure: how to use the Petipé as the graphic scale was known and how to prepare the main materials, pointing out a important problem: the different measure units in European countries, explaining that and the adequate unit measure for each kind of survey. The instruments he manages to explain are the very traditional and even old ones: the graduated circle (circulo dimensorio), the traditional and the modern circular plank, the so-called prancheta (surveyor s plane table) and the pilot s compass (bussola). He lists all the things the engineers should bring with them to the field: the petipé, an articulated ruler, an iron chain, ropes, a wood plane table, the chosen measurement instrument and some persons to help him, holding ropes and poles, small flags to mark the fixed points. Then he teaches how to mark in the field every sort of angle and measuring distances, how to prepare the first draft, planning since the beginning of the operation the delicate process of transferring data from the field to the first sketch and afterwards to the clean drawing. When the chief engineer explains how to survey without instruments, he uses particular examples, a bastion, a building, even a plan of a village with its houses, streets and buildings. The main concerns are the average dimensions and a correct use of the triangulation procedure with strings and fixed points practical geometry procedures. He advices that the surveyor should not measure too many angles, because when drawing on the paper, joining together all the measures, usually the figure becomes inaccurate. 7

8 The drawing process deserves an appendix, with the drawing prescriptions in plan and in perspective (with and without a squared frame, quadricula). Yet, one notices that the main scope is in fact the military field and architectural mapping, codifying colors and signs, precising the difference between existent works and projected ones, with continuous or dashed lines, with red or yellow colouring; and giving some colour making recipes. Considering the entire treatise, one can observe a quite confusing surveying code, as the chief engineer speaks about all kinds of maps, mixing sometimes geographical and architectural scales. It s very obvious that his main goals are the great geographical maps for the Royal Academy of History, but his real experience is mostly dealing with problems and examples related to military surveying in fields, fortresses and buildings. When, several years later, he printed his treatise on fortification, the first volume was completely dedicated to practical geometry, with trigonometric principles and mapping procedures restricted to military ones, which in this period meant mostly urban mapping. The royal engineer had preferred to sacrifice innovative features to good operational use of already tested proceedings. LAVINIA GAZZÈ Dal duca di Noja all abate Gargallo: lo spazio urbano di Siracusa nei plastici lignei del XVIII secolo Nel presente intervento si prenderanno in esame due plastici lignei settecenteschi che riproducono la città di Siracusa: il primo viene realizzato in ambiente napoletano ed è attribuito a Giovanni Carafa, duca di Noja; il secondo è realizzato da Giuseppe Costa, su commissione del canonico Domenico Gargallo, esponente di spicco della nobiltà siracusana. Dall analisi di queste due rappresentazioni, realizzate con l ausilio della stessa tecnica, ma con esiti e finalità assolutamente differenti, si cercherà, quindi, di mettere a confronto due letture diverse dello spazio urbano. Nel 1770, venne pubblicata la seconda edizione della Lettere ad un amico,un opuscolo scritto da Giovanni Carafa duca di Noja vent anni prima, nel 1750, per presentare le sue valutazioni«sull utilità e la gloria che si trarrebbe da una esatta carta topografica della Città di Napoli e del suo contado». La ricca bibliografia relativa alla a Giovanni Carafa e alla sua splendida carta - si ricordano i contributi di Blessich, Venturi, De Seta e Marin - ha analizzato le diverse fasi legate alla sua contrastata realizzazione, impresa che occupò il duca di Noja dal 1750 fino alla sua morte, avvenuta nel La ristampa della Lettera, a due anni dalla scomparsa del suo autore, fu così accompagnata da una introduzione di Gian Vincenzo Meola - intellettuale vicino al Carafa - nella quale veniva ricostruito il percorso che aveva sollecitato nel Duca di Noja l idea di costruire la Mappa topografica della città di Napoli e de suoi contorni, pubblicata postuma solo nel In particolare, Meola richiamava la pratica militare svolta da Giovanni Carafa attorno al 1743 quando lasciati i suoi studi scientifici aveva comandato il reggimento Terra di Bari, delineando una sequenza di esperienze che avrebbero condotto il duca di Noja dal rilievo e disegno delle piazzeforti di città, alla maturazione dell idea della mappa di Napoli, che egli aveva progettato con un tale livello di complessità da rendere necessarie raffinate competenze tecniche. Ma tra la prima fase e l esito finale della carta napoletana, Meola evidenzia un passaggio intermedio di estrema importanza sia perché diede rilievo al suo operato presso il sovrano sia perché indica la sua capacità di intervenire con originalità affinando la qualità delle sue produzioni, perché dalle piante militari trasse «tanti modelli esattissimi di legno da esso lui alla Maestà del Re Carlo presentati si ponn oggi osservare nella Real reggia di Capodimonte». Si tratta quasi certamente, dei dieci modelli di legno, sughero e gesso dipinti delle principali piazzeforti del Regno, indicate nel 1896 da Blessich, modelli, tuttavia, che presentano caratteristiche differenti. Infatti, buona parte di essi sono dei forti ( S. Elmo,Trani, Barletta, Bari, Aquila, Monopoli e Portolongone), e solo tre riproducono le fortificazioni e la pianta urbana: i plastici di Gaeta, Messina e Siracusa, unico quest ultimo ad essersi salvato poiché quello di Messina è stato perso e quello di Gaeta è stato distrutto nel corso della seconda guerra mondiale. Tra i «modelli esattissimi di legno» attribuiti al duca di Noja, dunque, a rappresentare una pianta di città e il suo territorio è rimasto solo il plastico di Siracusa che rimanda con chiarezza a un modello cartografico di estrema precisione e raffinatezza per l epoca, del quale ci si è serviti per la realizzazione del grande plastico, reso come una sorta di carta tridimensionale». E del prodotto cartografico, sebbene non ne abbia la materialità, presenta tutti gli elementi grafici e compositivi, quasi punto mediano tra modello e carta, tra esigenze militari e sensibilità cartografiche. Realizzato in un quadro di grande dimensione (mm.2250x3350), il plastico è formato da cinque pannelli lignei assemblati - come più fogli costituivano le grandi carte esposte nelle pareti - costituendo nell insieme una splendida immagine zenitale di Siracusa che realizzata per fini militari, disegna la planimetria dello spazio extraurbano e urbano tracciato per la prima volta nelle carte dei primi anni del XVIII secolo. Dallo sfondo ligneo dipinto emerge 8

9 a rilievo la sagoma della città, delle fortificazioni, con evidenza delle strutture difensive dell istmo realizzate in legno sughero e gesso, prolungando l immagine della città nella vasta area dell entroterra con un esattissima indicazione del tessuto viario urbano ed extraurbano che conduceva all ingresso fortificato urbano. Il rimando a una carta si legge chiaramente anche nelle scelte di costruzione del plastico perché a differenza dei più noti plans-reliefs di tradizione francese non sono resi le sagome degli edifici, ma mediante plaquette lignee si definiscono gli isolati e il sistema viario. Ma a differenza della carta il plastico consegue, sotto un ottica squisitamente militare, un obbiettivo importante: consente di vedere e toccare il complesso di fortificazioni dell istmo, progettate nella seconda metà del XVII dal fiammingo Carlos Grunenbergh, completato e aggiornato nei primi decenni del Settecento sotto la spinta dei due assedi Siracusa aveva subito. Inoltre, ottiene il superamento delle carenze della cartografia tradizionale: infatti, la costruzione in rilievo della complessa struttura difensiva permette di ottenere un altra prospettiva, un visione d insieme di citta e aree extraurbane passando ad una resa «plastica» delle forme dell orografia che traducevano livelli di quota differenti ottenute nelle carte rese con una descrizione simbolica - con una lettura esatta dei profili, elevazioni, quote altimetriche che rivela anche la natura e l importanza, in chiave militare, dei livelli del paesaggio. La tradizione cartografica riemerge ancora in alcuni formalismi, come il cartiglio posto in basso in posizione centrale, purtroppo illeggibile o la legenda, in alto a destra che sembra rimandare alla presenza di una numerazione o di altro sistema per indicare alcuni punti forti. Di estrema importanza, infine, la presenza della scala metrica oggi purtroppo illeggibile, ma che Blessich nel 1896 ebbe modo di leggere e riporta solo per il plastico di Siracusa: «Escala de Ochenta Tuesas, mm. 256, ed Escala de Ochenta canas Sicilianas, mm. 279». Dunque il duca di Noja, dopo aver tratto le piante delle fortezze e di alcune città, esercizio che svolse lavorando a contatto con ingegneri militari, fra i quali vi erano napoletani, spagnoli e francesi, realizzò i dieci plastici posti inizialmente «nella Regal Villa di Capodimonte», quasi a fondare per il giovane Sovrano che aveva dovuto conquistare il regno, una raccolta di plastici delle più importanti piazzeforti e castelli del Regno, come a rifarsi all esperienza francese poiché «la Francia insieme con le carte esattissime di tutto il Regno, ebbe dalla magnificenza di Luigi XIV le piante di tutte le Città, ed i suoi modelli ancora di tutte le Piazze forti de suoi confini», come scriverà il duca di Noja per presentare il suo progetto della grande carta di Napoli. Qualche anno dopo, nel 1773, l abate Domenico Gargallo, esponente di una nobile famiglia siracusana, riprende il modello della pianta a rilievo e commissiona al sacerdote Giuseppe Costa, per fini squisitamente privati, la realizzazione di un modello ligneo della pianta di Siracusa. Il plastico riproduce la medesima prospettiva, ma privilegia soprattutto la città e impianto urbano, stretto tra forti e baluardi, applicando una diversa chiave di lettura che mira ad interpretare lo spazio urbano come spazio sociale indicando i protagonisti cittadini, le famiglie, le istituzioni, grazie al disegno di un stemma o di un numero collegato ad una didascalia. Un indicazione che offre con immediatezza agli occhi dell osservatore il teatro nel quale operano i cittadini, delineando relazioni sociali e zone d influenza dell élites siracusana che torna ad identificare e riempire lo spazio cittadino. Il prodotto cartografico, dunque sia che venga fatta proprio dall èlites locale sia che serva da base nella costruzione di un modello militare, costituisce, comunque, per lo storico un elemento prezioso per l analisi dei processi di costruzione di un identità urbana. GIANNANTONIO SCAGLIONE Una carta poco nota di Sebastiano Ittar: la planimetria de La Valletta dell ultimo decennio del Settecento Nel mio intervento prenderò in esame una carta poco nota realizzata dall architetto Sebastiano Ittar: la planimetria de La Valletta realizzata nell ultimo decennio del Settecento. Attraverso l analisi di questa planimetria cercherò di ricostruire non solo le tecniche di realizzazione ma anche le modalità di rappresentazione dello spazio urbano. Gli studi su Sebastiano Ittar e sulla planimetria de La Valletta sono molto pochi. Sulla figura dell architetto esistono solo alcuni opuscoli di Librando, Sciavarello e Nicolosi degli anni Settanta del Novecento e alcuni cenni di Pagnano, Sammut, Iachello e Militello. La planimetria de La Valletta, invece, è stata oggetto di un breve saggio del 2000 di Giuseppe Dato. La mia ricerca, ancora in una fase iniziale, ha preso spunto da questi contributi e dalla consultazione ancora in fieri di alcuni documenti inediti conservati presso gli archivi italiani e maltesi. Prima di analizzare la nostra planimetria, ritengo opportuno fornire alcuni cenni sulla vita e le opere di Sebastiano Ittar. Questi nasce a Catania nel 1778 da Stefano Ittar, architetto attivo in Sicilia e a Malta nella seconda metà del Settecento. Nel 1790, alla morte del padre avvenuta a Malta mentre realizzava la 9

10 Biblioteca su incarico dei Cavalieri Sebastiano deciderà di restare a La Valletta a continuare i lavori lasciati dal genitore. Nel 1799 si trasferisce a Roma dove viene invitato dall ambasciatore inglese a Costantinopoli, il conte di Elgin, a far parte di una spedizione in Grecia per rilevare e studiare le antichità classiche. Nel 1804 rientra a Catania, dove si dedica allo studio e al rilievo dei monumenti antichi, oltre che alla realizzazione di diverse cartografie urbane e territoriali. Frutto di questo lavoro sarà la pubblicazione della Raccolta degli antichi edifici di Catania, una raccolta di 25 incisioni riguardanti i paesaggi dell Etna e una planimetria di Catania, fatta incidere durante un soggiorno di tre anni a Parigi, per la cui realizzazione impiegò più di 25 anni, dal 1806 al Dal 1833 ricoprì l incarico di architetto del comune di Catania, fino alla morte, avvenuta nel Come ho già accennato, durante gli anni trascorsi sull isola di Malta Ittar realizza un accurata planimetria de La Valletta. Di questa un raro esemplare in bianco e nero, è conservato presso la sezione Cartes e Plans della Bibliothèque Nationale de France; un altra copia, acquarellata, è invece conservata presso il Museo Civico di Castello Ursino di Catania. La planimetria, un incisione su rame stampata con inchiostro nero di 650x420 mm, presenta nella sezione centrale il disegno dell area urbana della Valletta, del Borgo o città Vittoriosa, di Isola o città Senglea, di Burmola o Città Cospicua, della Floriana e Casal Novo. Nelle sezioni laterali, sinistra e destra, vengono riportati alcuni riquadri contenenti le legende e alcune vedute dello spazio urbano. Se da un lato la scena centrale della carta mostra in maniera molto dettagliata le planimetrie degli spazi urbani, le imponenti fortificazioni difensive, i golfi e i porti esaltando, quindi, l aspetto strategico-militare dell isola dall altro le sei vedute raffiguranti la Piazza avanti il palazzo Magistrale e quella detta de Cavalieri, l Arsenale de Vascelli, la chiesa di S. Giovanni, il palazzo del Tribunale e l Arsenale delle Galere, mettono in evidenza la dimensione urbana e civile della città-capitale. La planimetria di Ittar si pone sulla scia delle numerose carte dedicate alla capitale maltese da Chassereau a Bellin, a Collignon (a questo proposito è d obbligo citare i lavori di Albert Ganado sulla cartografia maltese, oltre che il volume, di imminente uscita, di Francesca Gringeri Pantano). Rispetto a queste planimetrie la carta di Sebastiano Ittar da un lato presenta caratteristiche similari, soprattutto per impostazione e orientamento; dall altro lato il nostro architetto, accostando delle vedute ad una planimetria più aggiornata, presenta un prodotto stilisticamente nuovo ma anche scientificamente valido, visto che il suo rilievo costituirà la base sulla quale verranno redatte alcune delle più celebri carte ottocentesche, come quella di William Henry Smyth del Purtroppo non abbiamo informazioni dirette sulle procedure utilizzate da Ittar per la realizzazione del rilievo urbano. Un ipotesi può essere formulata prendendo in esame i disegni inediti realizzati da Ittar per il rilievo dei monumenti greci, attualmente conservati presso il Museo Civico di Castello Ursino di Catania (per questo ringrazio la responsabile del museo, Anna Quartarone). Attraverso questi disegni è possibile ipotizzare il procedimento tecnico utilizzato per realizzare il rilievo. In particolare risulta interessante lo schizzo della Pianta di Micene, perché ci mostra la tecnica che il nostro architetto usava per effettuare un perfetto sistema di maglie di triangolazione ai fini del rilievo dell area urbana. Al di là degli aspetti tecnici, la nostra planimetria risulta particolarmente interessante anche dal punto di vista storico. Essa, infatti, ci permette di ricostruire il processo di costruzione dell identità urbana maltese durante il periodo di occupazione francese. Gli studi recenti (da De Seta a Marin, a Iachello, solo per citarne alcuni) hanno mostrato come la cartografia storica anche quella planimetrica può costituire anche un valido strumento di ricostruzione dell identità urbana. Se da un lato le rappresentazioni cartografiche necessitano di essere contestualizzate storicamente, dall altro per meglio interpretare l uso e la pratica delle carte, bisogna indagare il motivo esterno che le produce e le giustifica e rintracciare il punto di vista adottato dal cartografo. Un elemento interessante, da questo punto di vista, è la dedica, posta al centro in basso, subito dopo il titolo, dove si legge Ai Cittadini Reubell, Creilliard etc.... Componenti il Direttorio Esecutivo della Repubblica Francese... Sebastiano Ittar direante già libero in segno di riconoscenza offre e dedica. Il primo dei citati è Jean François Reubell, che nel novembre del 1795 venne eletto membro del Direttorio e che dal 1796 al 1799 ne divenne presidente. La committenza, invece, visti i tempi di realizzazione di una planimetria di questo genere, fu probabilmente antecedente al periodo francese: è ragionevole pensare, quindi, che fosse di origine Gerosolimitana. Ciò viene ulteriormente avvalorato dall uso dell italiano lingua prediletta dall Ordine, come ci confermano gli studi di Brincat nella dedica, nelle legende e nella toponomastica. E lecito, quindi, supporre che la planimetria de La Valletta, commissionata dai Cavalieri, sia stata poi riutilizzata e dedicata ai nuovi dominatori dell isola, i francesi. Il fatto che ben presto l isola passi in mano inglese può, inoltre, far supporre il motivo della scarsa diffusione di questa carta. La dedica al direttorio francese, ormai inutilizzabile, e la lingua italiana, ormai destinata ad essere soppiantata dall inglese, hanno 10

11 evidentemente determinato lo scarso successo della rappresentazione cartografica, destinata ad essere sostituita dalle più celebri planimetria (non ultima quella già citata di Smyth). La carta diventa, così, testimonianza viva della tempestosa e mutevole situazione politico-militare che caratterizzò l età napoleonica. Nondimeno la carta di Ittar, oltre a fornire una visione dettagliata dell assetto urbano della città alla fine del Settecento, permette anche di ricostruire l immagine che della città si voleva fornire da parte dell élite locale. L opera di Ittar, che come abbiamo già detto accosta le planimetrie dei centri urbani dell isola con le vedute della Valletta, mette in rilievo sia il punto di vista adottato dal cartografo ma anche quello dei committenti (e, perché no, anche dei dedicatari). L elemento che della città viene celebrato è non solo quello militare, ma anche quello urbano e civile. Sebastiano Ittar adotterà la stessa impostazione stilistica nella Pianta topografica della città di Catania, contornando la planimetria con cinque vedute delle più belle piazze della città. Da La Valletta, quindi, all immagine della città militare viene accostata anche l immagine di una città capitale, sottolineata dal disegno degli isolati e, soprattutto, dalle, già citate, vedute degli edifici. Così come era avvenuto nel secolo precedente (come ci confermano gli studi di Brogini) nella nuova temperie storica accanto alla città fortezza viene offerta anche l immagine di una città capitale, già da tempo sede di commercio e di servizi. La planimetria di Ittar si presenta, dunque, non solo come un prezioso documento cartografico in grado di restituire l assetto urbano e militare de La Valletta, ma anche come immagine preziosa in grado di restituire l immagine e l identità urbana di un città in una delicata fase di transizione e trasformazione. JEAN-LUC ARNAUD Ports et rades de Méditerranée XVIII e -XIX e siecles Communication consacrée aux images publiées dans les atlas de ports et rades de Méditerranée (fin XVIIIe-XIXe siècle). Ces atlas, destinés aux marins, constituent une forme spécifique de publication. Je me propose de les examiner suivant deux points de vue : A. La fréquence de ces publications durant la période considérée permet de restituer l avancement des connaissances en matière de cartographie urbaine, cela à la fois en matière de répartition géographique du savoir (on note de fortes différences régionales) et en ce qui concerne les villes proprement dites. De fortes disparités subsistent à la fin du XIXe siècle, elles tiennent à la fois aux difficultés rencontrées par les auteurs et à l intérêt inégal qu ils portent aux différentes villes ; les catégories : port, mouillage, escale témoignent de ces différences. B. Les images des villes publiées dans ces atlas sont le plus souvent partielles et partiales. Il s agit d évaluer ce qui est montré et aussi ce qui ne l est pas pour mieux saisir quel intérêt les auteurs ont porté sur les villes en questions. Là encore les disparités régionales sont importantes : on ne montre pas les mêmes choses pour les villes du nord de la Méditerranée et pour celles de l Empire ottoman. MARCO IULIANO Le città di carta del Touring Club Italiano Il Centro di Documentazione del Touring Club Italiano, che ha sede in Milano, mette a disposizione al pubblico una straordinaria messe di materiali: descrizioni, cartografie e fotografie che hanno concorso a determinare l idea e l immagine dei nostri luoghi e, indirettamente, a descriverne la trasformazione nel corso degli anni. Sin dalla fondazione, avvenuta nel 1894, il Touring Club Italiano ha contribuito in maniera determinante a diffondere la conoscenza geografica delle città e del territorio, fornendo alcuni strumenti di estrema precisione che sintetizzano al livello più alto le conoscenze cartografiche del tempo. In questo grande progetto gioca un ruolo centrale Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli ( ). Bertarelli, uno tra i 57 membri fondatori del sodalizio, fu il promotore della nascita di un ufficio cartografico, costituito nel 1914, e poi direttore del TCI dal Tra i prodotti che meglio esemplificano il modus operandi di Bertarelli va ricordata la collana della Guida d Italia pubblicata in sedici tomi usciti in prima edizione tra il 1914 ed il 1928, distribuita in quattro milioni di copie proprio allo scadere del Il progetto originario prevedeva la divisione del paese in sette aree geografiche principali: Piemonte, Lombardia e Canton Ticino (2 vol.), Liguria Toscana a Nord dell Arno, Emilia (2 vol.), Sardegna, Sicilia, Le Tre Venezie (3 vol.), Italia Centrale (4 vol.), Italia Meridionale (3 vol.). Ognuna di queste guide contiene una serie di piante di città che, soprattutto in chiave comparativa, si rivelano precisi strumenti per la storia urbana. Lucio Gambi aveva avvertito dell importanza di queste 11

12 fonti cartografiche del Novecento nell introduzione al capitolo de La città da immagine simbolica a proiezione urbanistica nella Storia d Italia pubblicata da Einaudi (1976); più tardi ne faceva ampio uso nel volume su Milano nella collana de Le Città nella Storia d Italia. Dal punto di vista metodologico lo studioso utilizzava in quella sede le carte di Milano pubblicate dal Touring nel 1914, 1938 e 1967 (scale da 1: a 1:15.000) in chiave comparativa per la zona periferica della città, rifunzionalizzata nel corso degli anni. «Sono chiaramente piante - scrive lo studioso - che nascono in funzione di una guida: ma che diversamente dalla guida, in cui poco si riverberano o riecheggiano d abitudine i fenomeni della dinamica della città, riescono a seguire in modo abbastanza efficace le modificazioni urbanistiche in corso». Gambi traccia un ponte tra la cartografia dell età moderna e contemporanea, segnalando gli elementi di continuità negli allestimenti delle piante fino a quelle del TCI: coloriture differenti, retini più o meno marcati, planimetrie degli interni per gli edifici del potere civile e religioso, simboli, cifre che rinviano ad una legenda. Ed il termine di paragone utilizzato da Gambi, per la definizione delle invarianti negli allestimenti, era la pianta di Milano del Richini, del Una continuità storica che deve far riflettere sull importanza della cartografia contemporanea, di fondamentale importanza per la conoscenza, l analisi e l intervento nelle nostre città, così segnate dalle trasformazioni del secolo breve. CARLOS LÓPEZ GALVIZ On maps, timetables, cities and railways. London and Paris, c I. The publication of city guides, booklets, handbooks, pocket maps, dictionaries, albums and other manuals increased substantially towards the second half of C19 in London and Paris (Hancok 2004). These navigation instruments were produced with the aim to aid excursionists both foreign and local in their visits and wanderings within and in and out of the two cities. Buildings, open spaces, natural elements such as forests and evidently the rivers structured the way in which the city space was represented in these works. Means of transport featured prominently as distances for the entire area of the capitals were less likely to be covered walking. Vast amounts of people concentrated around the main line railway termini which had become important for the spatial layout and the definition of the traffic flows in both cities since the 1850s. Existing railway lines and stations were salient landmarks of maps and guides, but there was an important difference in terms of how the provision of railway services for passenger traffic had evolved in each city. In London, the Metropolitan opened the first section of its line in 1863, and so the District did in 1868; the Inner Circle which consisted of the central sections of these two was complete in 1884; the City and South London opened in 1890; the Central London in 1900 and subsequent Tube lines thereafter. Main line companies also operated suburban services or built extensions of their lines into the City, notably the North London (LNW, 1852) and the Waterloo and City (LSW, 1898). In Paris, the line 1 of the Métropolitain opened as the first section of a network which was near completion with six different lines in Since 1862, intermittent passenger services were available in the Ceinture, but with the exception of the Auteuil line (west), services focused on the goods traffic of main line companies circumventing the central and inner districts, and following for the most part the line of the fortifications. Initially, the city railway was conceived in response to insufficient means of urban transport. Its implementation, however, was influenced by many other aspects which were part of the transformation of both cities, including the sustained increase in population, the extension of urban and suburban limits, changes in the price and use of land whether residential, commercial, industrial or otherwise, and issues of public health and order, among many others. Accordingly other modes of transport specialised in routes that were to some extent reflection of these changes. The question that obtains is thus what was characteristic of the city railway. Travelling patterns existed in line with the operation of designated routes and the use of more or less invariable stops by riverboats, tramways, omnibuses, cabs, and other vehicles. Omnibus routes such as Paddington to Bank in London or Auteuil to Palais Royal in Paris, for example, constituted clearly regular daily journeys while, at the same time, reflecting the large traffic flows which demonstrated severe street congestion. If subject to the ebb and flow of traffic, the will of passengers regarding where to terminate their journeys and, ultimately, the skills of the driver, horse-drawn vehicles did use fairly regular stops. Hiring cabs (voitures de place) had numerous stops in Paris. Offices of the operating companies and interchanging stops, that is, intermediate stations where passengers could connect between routes, were also indication of existing correspondences, hence a sense of different lines intersecting with one another, namely a network. What became characteristic of the city railway was that it fixed this functional structure. 12

13 Once built, it created a clearly differentiated space for the operation of a system which functioned according to a distinctively normalised time. The combination of the two, i.e., the space below the streets and railway time, created a sharp contrast with the way in which omnibuses and other street vehicles traversed the two cities daily. Maps and guides had to reflect the numerous changes introduced in the layout of both cities, including means of transport. At times maps were thought to be indispensable as when trying to make sense of the convoluted character of London railways. This was something that was clearly expressed by an observer writing to the Illustrated London News in November 1868, when he claimed for a map that shows us how to avail ourselves of the new and mysterious means of communication called metropolitan railways. We read of outer and inner circles, and of the belts which are nearly complete, and we get a sort of astronomical feeling, and are quite sure that from a balloon or some commanding position we should discover symmetry and order, and a well-conceived system. The map was to perform the function that the railway lines did not seem to express. Travelling by means of metropolitan railways in London implied getting to know not only which lines operated which routes, but also the different trains, stations, and platforms that were used by different companies. Conceiving of circles referred not only to the planned junction between the Metropolitan and District lines, but also to the services offered by the main line companies circumventing central London. When drawn in maps, circles appeared to be reflection of an ordered system as it had been done by the General Post Office or the Metropolitan Police since the 1830s. Circles, on the other hand, did not seem to express coherence when describing correspondences between railway lines. If there be a union of lines the points of contact are carefully concealed from all but the initiated, the observer went on to assert, and so the map was to bridge the discrepancy between the built structure and knowing how to use it: you cannot discover railway stations and termini by instinct, and we have a right to be told, once for all, where to go when we want to perform a given journey. In the everyday event of travelling within London, the expertise of cartography was required in order to translate and simplify the convoluted construct as it had been built by railways. The cartographer, he concluded, should prepare a lucid sketch map, showing all the metropolitan lines [ ] but leaving out as much as possible of mere street portraiture. The main arteries and a few of the principal squares are all that can be needed, but let him be very particular in indicating the new stations. The map became the place in which the space of the city where a myriad of activities traditionally unfolded was subordinated to the legibility of a space and time exclusively devoted to circulation. If the experience of railway travelling was a way to measure how difficult making sense of London was, the difficulty was enhanced when events that gathered masses such as the world exhibitions were the reason to visit London and, more so, Paris. In a series of letters to The Times, an English visitor to the Paris exhibition of 1867 made explicit his impressions of the French capital and contrasted that with what for him London represented: He remarked that commuters in the omnibuses and on the Seine steamboats smiled and behaved as though on holiday and confessed that it had been a revelation to him to discover that city streets might be used for innocent recreation. How different was the mood in London, he noted. There people on their way to work wore only their destinations on their faces. But he did not mean necessarily to fault his fellow countrymen. It was obvious from the tone that, much as he might enjoy the seductive graces of the French capital, Randal wanted London to be itself: purposeful, serious, responsible. (Winter 1993, 20) During the 1878 exhibition, the Ceinture was characterised together with the riverboats as the more comfortable alternatives to other means of urban transport. While the boat services were more pleasurable, the Ceinture offered a direct connection with the exhibition site at Champ de Mars. (see Chromo-Guide 1878, pp. 5-7). According to one of the illustrated guides to the later edition of 1889, there were five different ways to reach the exhibition, namely by railway, hiring cabs (voitures de place), omnibus and tramways, riverboats, and other carts (tapissières or chars a bancs). The Champ de Mars station was reached by trains of the Ceinture and Ouest companies; additional train services were offered if necessary. Eleven stops for cabs, regulated by the Police (15 April 1889), were available in the immediate surroundings. Six omnibus and five tramway routes reached the site as well. Three riverboat routes opened exclusively for the service of the exhibition: from Hôtel de Ville to Pont d Ièna (Hirondelles), from Charenton, Pont National, to Champ de Mars (Mouches), and the service that the shops of the Louvre organised for their clients, using four Galères luxuriously fitted and gilded. A street resembling an African district (quartier oriental), rue du Caire, and a railway for transporting visitors (6 km and 0,60 m. of gauge) within the exhibition grounds, Decauville, were built. (p. 41; for the Decauville railway see also pp ). But Champ de Mars was only a small fraction of what visitors could enjoy in Paris and so they were invited to explore further within and without the city walls. Another guide to the 1889 exhibition explained that it took two and a half hours to complete the circuit of the outlying districts connected by the Ceinture which counted twenty nine stations, the principal point of departure 13

14 being the Gare St Lazare, the termini of the Ouest company. (image 1) The description of the journey gave impressions of places with distinct characters; some were more populated than others like Auteuil, or had adopted especial types of buildings ( les charmants cottages et les quinconces du Ranelagh, p. 121) like the area near the Bois de Boulogne, or were themselves villages adjacent to the metropolis. Stations of the left bank section were: at Grenelle, wherefrom one goes to Issy and Vanves and where the small line that leads to Champ de Mars connects; at Vaurigard, then to the Ouest-Ceinture cutting the left bank Versailles line; at Montrouge, by Plaisance and the Petit Montrouge, left of the villages of Malakoff and Grand Montrouge. The train then enters a long tunnel built through the catacombs and opening (débouche) at Glacière-Gentilly station, in correspondence with the Sceaux and Paris to Limours railway. Before arriving at the Maison Blanche beyond the Avenue d Italie, [the train] goes through the Bièvre and to the right one notices Gentilly and the Hospice de Bicêtre, in the Glacière quartier. The Orléans-Ceinture, in the Gare quartier, is the last station on the left bank; it corresponds with the main lines of the Orléans railway. All the outlying districts (quartiers) of this [river] bank [consisted of] working classes (ville ouvrieres); especially Grenelle [which] counted a large number of ateliers and factories. (122). As described in the guide, this was an idyllic journey in contrast with the thirty five omnibus routes and thirty seven tramways that people used to cross Paris centre and its inner districts. After the very successful exhibition of 1851 and the more questioned version of 1862, events organised in South Kensington were an important source of revenue for the Metropolitan and District companies in London. Tickets to enter the exhibition grounds were issued together with train tickets. The colonial exhibition of 1886 was among the most successful; its passenger traffic represented most welcome profits for the District. The exhibition staged the colonies of the British Empire to the British People in much the same way as the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris did it with the French colonies. Exhibitions promoted journeys of discovery both within and without London and Paris. They were part of the events which seemed to correspond with the concerns for fresher air that reformers advocated throughout the second half of the C19. In contrast with the situation in Paris, having a more or less idyllic circuit round the city and urban transport dominated by omnibuses, riverboats, and tramways, the first two city railway lines in London replicated the logic of linear extension towards the suburbs. This was the tendency which main line railway companies used but, at the same time, the Metropolitan and District were competing for passenger traffic within the circle they created. In the process, the two companies produced maps and timetables which added to the profuse body of existing city guides. An important characteristic of these maps was that the companies used them not only to advertise their services to events such as exhibitions, but most significantly to inform their customers of the opening of new sections, stations, or, indeed, the opening of circles. (image 2) Editions of maps and timetables had generally a frequency of two annual issues, one for the winter service and another for the summer. They were visual aids used in the context of competing for urban and suburban traffic. The Metropolitan and District drew on numerous techniques in order to distinguish their own lines and services in the maps they commissioned. Distortions were used when needed. Topographical and urban features or competing railway lines were suppressed or modified as to allow a complete emphasis on the lines or sections of either company. Accurate descriptions of the city were compromised at times for the city was a background against which a seemingly ordered sequence of lines and points could find itself confirmed. Incidentally it was that vision and the way to read it what might have introduced some coherence, if only visual, to a domain constantly resisting formulation, namely the city. Maps of the city railway appeared to gain prominence over other city guides. Charles Dickens Jr., for example, listed about fifteen maps in the 1880 edition of his Dictionary of London, including both general and specifically railway maps (Dickens 1880: 171-2). In Dicken s view, the District map was, with its emphasis on the West End and the western and south-western areas the line connected, the clearest and most convenient. (image 3) Having a map depicting lines and circles was one thing; finding one s way through the actual operation of different trains and routes was another. Trains of the Metropolitan, for example, were divided in up to the city and down from the city, whereby up indicated the outer rail tracks and down the inner tracks, both of which were part of the Inner Circle. In connection with this distinction, Metropolitan timetables also reflected how much of London traffic was shared with the several main line companies. The Metropolitan s timetable for winter services of 1887 to 1888 listed services of six different companies, GW, GN, SE, Mid, LCD, and GE. Thirty seven pages out of over a hundred were printed for the exclusive use of these companies. The Midland, for example, ran trains from Moorgate to Bedford; also city and suburban trains, making explicit that at designated times passengers [were] not conveyed locally, indicating the company s interest in long distance traffic. The LCD was the only to reverse the convention of up and down trains, since its elongated loop crossed the river twice, first at Battersea Park via Chelsea Bridge and second, from the south bank via Blackfriars Bridge into the City. The company s suburban 14

15 trains operated between Victoria Station and Brixton. Their city service ran between Victoria and King s Cross, where the LCD used the station of the Metropolitan Railway. The term metropolitan, in this sense, included connections between the suburbs and more distant areas and the line that encircled central London, from Aldgate and Mansion House in the eastern part of the city centre to High Street Kensington in the west, and from the Metropolitan Railway stations along Euston road in the north to the District Railway stations along the Thames embankment in the south. In Paris, the term metropolitan was introduced since the early stages of the project that changed faces numerous times all through the second half of the C19. After the first lines were built, a 1908 guide characterised it as a new instrument of economic and rapid transport. The guide was conceived to comprehend the system and help passengers to avoid the hesitation produced when deciding if, how, and where to change between lines. Speed and the unfamiliarity of a space devoted to circulation seemed to cause new anxieties of the kind this guide addressed and so by using it passengers could travel without any hesitation or request of information, as the introduction to the guide reassured its customers. Individuals were, in this sense, subject to rules and instructions which they would follow in order to ensure the effective circulation of masses. But were the instructions themselves effective? The method adopted in this guide required its users to focus on three different pieces of information from the outset: direction to take at departure points; where to change between lines; direction to take right after each (inter)change. Certain routes, as we indicate them, said the guide, may not seem the shortest, but we have the conviction of having indicated the most practical. Practicality was thus placed before distance; the layout of streets replaced by the seemingly simple and reliable representation of a system which contained the beginning and end of city journeys. To enter the logic of such system instructions were needed. To learn how that logic operated a clearly distinct set of codes and readings had to be replicated. (scheme 4) En partant des stations de cette section Pour aller sur Direction à prendre au départ 1 er changement à faire Direction prendre ensuite à Changements suivants à faire Direction à prendre ensuite lignes sections Schematic view of the information provided in the tables used in Livret G.Goury. Guide du Métropolitain, Pour arriver à la station II. To annihilate space, to conquer time is the great desideratum of this century, wrote an anonymous contemporary commentator referring to Pearson s ideas for a city railway, hence urban reform and improvement (City Improvements and Mr Pearson 1853, 10). In the context of urban cartography and in relation to the broader question of reform, maps were used to illustrate and consolidate a systematic knowledge of the city in both London and Paris. The reading of the city for those who produced and used these maps was informed by the need to implement effective changes that would respond to issues such as public health and poverty. Within this context, maps informed plans, debates, and decisions on how to improve the conditions of those who lived and worked in the two cities. City railway maps, on the other hand, were used to articulate a seemingly ordered vision of urban movement. Whereas for reformers the city seemed to represent a domain of circulation and improvement for users of the city railway maps constituted an instrument that informed their urban and suburban journeys. The discourse of urban improvement that aimed to sanitize the city had a counterpart in the discourse of accessibility, reliability, comfort, security, and leisure that corresponded with the configuration of the city railway network at the turn of the twentieth century. Areas not yet known for certain sections of the population became stations within lines connected to the central and inner districts. Maps of the city railway made that information available at once, if distorted and being itself reflection of the vested interests of operating companies. Maps and timetables are visual representations. They were somewhat intended to structure readings of what was represented by abstracting and simplifying as to produce the seemingly ordered sequence of lines and points, in the case of the map, and the tabular arrangement of stations and times, in the case of the timetable. By repeatedly using the same instrument, or its actualised versions, travellers were to confirm not only the understanding that companies expected them to adopt, but also the way to represent to themselves the system. At the same time, the way in which this information was represented became part of the knowledge and expertise travellers required in order to travel within and in and out of the two cities. Maps, guides, and timetables were reflection of the process by which whoever produced or commissioned them made several and renewed attempts to capture the space and time of London and Paris as it was transformed particularly during the second half of the C19. These instruments were 15

16 instructive. The conventions used might have portrayed coherence, but the possible readings and the consequent interpretations made of the very act of travelling a characteristically discontinuous experience. What I think became distinctive of these instruments is that they aimed for an unequivocal interaction with the system they represented. But, that interaction was challenged every time a person could not find its way through the map or the timetable, failing to subject itself to the efficient movement of masses. It was one thing to articulate a more or less consistent knowledge of that system in one representation and quite another to experience the actual functioning of what was represented. ARNAUD PASSALACQUA Where Can I Take the Bus? Bus and Tram Maps in Paris (XIX th -XX th Centuries) Our paper addresses the various aspects of the construction and production of network maps in the field of public transport in Paris since the middle XIX th century. Two kinds of maps can be distinguished here. The first ones are produced by the engineering and technical world in order to run the network and forecast its evolutions. They are very common at least since the Interwar Period. We will consider that this kind of representation, often restricted to one line or a limited area, has mainly been the result of technical improvements. We will discuss the second kind of maps, that s to say, the maps designed for a public use. Their aim is to give a global view of the network to each traveller that can be directly used in order to plan a journey in the city. The problem lies in the huge variety of the public: some people just need to check that their line stops where they want to go, some others need to find where they are, where they want to go and how they can do that. Thus, maps are one piece of a global information policy based on various items: maps displayed in the street, guides that can be purchased at the company s offices, in bookshops or newspapers kiosks, informations given by the conductor or the driver, colors and names of the lines... From this point of view, the maps just complete a network of kowledge items learned by city dwellers and enabled by the big inertia of the network, which was more or less the same from 1855 to Thus, it appears that the transport company is note alone ont that field, and that, for instance, guide publishers choose to draw maps of transport networks. Indeed, the XIX th -century transport companies in Paris did not consider that their job was to publish network maps. The market, because it was a market, seems to have been an active one. Lots of guide publishers proposed their products to city dwellers but also to provincials and foreigners, in particular during the successive World Fairs (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, 1900). Before 1900, the configuration of the omnibus network was simple and the run by a monopolistic company. The tram network was more difficult to memorize, because of the various companies in that field. But both presented a simple use, such as their simple fares. At the company offices, at each transfer point, travellers could get informations, by asking the controllers. The kind of representation used before 1900 was very linked to the territory of the city. The maps presented the bus or tram network drawn on the street network. Advertising maps were also produced before the First World War. In that case, the choice could be made to select a Parisian public, supposed to know the city and to be a potential client of the brand that paid advertisement on that kind of maps. The city could thus totally graphically disappear behind the bus and tram network. After the First World War, the new company runs together bus and tram networks and initiate a new commercial policy, that intends to propose new services and lines. Thus at the beginning of the 1920 s the transport company itself published very complete guides that could be purchased by the travellers. But the new problem was the growing complexity of the overground network, notably due to the substitution of bus for trams and to a political inertia against any change. The difference was also clear by comparison with the metro, run by another company, whose maps were simple and well designed. The strentgh of the metro is here to have made the city disappear behind its network, whereas the overground transport network felt obliged to show the streets, their names and various characteristics. In that history, the Second World War is a major cut. Under the pro-german Vichy government, bus and metro have been unified under the responsability of one company, a choice confirmed by the post-war Republic whith the creation of a national monopolistic public company. The process can be considered as the absorption of the bus by the metro for many reasons. The field of network maps leads us to confirm this analysis. The logic that explains the choices made for the bus maps during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s is directly linked to the railway domination in that company. The city disappears, the line are schematized and the use of colors enables to distinguish between them. The climax of that spirit is reached by the grids that enable to plan a journey just by the name of the different districts, without any graphic representation of the city. This kind of code, based on a numerical approach, opposed to an analogical one, is the one used in London, for the bus network, whereas the Parisian culture did not really adopt it. 16

17 The solutions elaborated by the end of the 1940s seems to work till the 1970s. But this period was a period of massive decrease in the bus traffic, particularly because of congestion and social promotion of private car. The renewal of the bus network, linked to social evolution of the French society symbolized by the May 1968 events, was based on various tools, such as bus lanes and a travelpass, but was also concerned with mapping the network. New kinds of maps were designed and, for the first time, travellers have been implied in the process. A come back of the city, with its places and streets, is clear on these new maps. The final solution selected by the company is to draw various kind of maps according to the scale of use and diffusion : little maps with a few urban items, big maps with a good representation of the territory... During the 1990s the improvements in printing technology enabled to choose more than 4 colors in order to draw maps and to identify its bus lines. If the solution to the dilemma between mapping the city or mapping the network is not solved nowadays the role of the technology must here be underlined. But the orientation capacity of city dwellers have probably less evolved. This evolution reveals a process of reduction of the diversity of tools given to the travellers to get information on transport networks. Whereas maps where one of the different items produced by the system in 1900, it has been the only one since the renewal of buses of the 1970s. The others have disappeared, such as the conductors, or are less complete and diffused, such as the guides. It can be supposed that the company has found here a way of controlling its communication, thanks to design and processing progress but also to the use of the metro logic. Finally, maps address the links between a transport network and the city, by the choices made in the graphic representation. The difficulty of bus network to conceive its maps in Paris may reflect a more general complex of this transport means in that city. ILARIO PRINCIPE Orizzonti mentali e mappe terrestri. La dimensione urbano-territoriale nella cultura aborigena contemporanea La grande rassegna parigina del 1980 sul tema Cartes et figures de la Terre col catalogo che ne è scaturito ha avuto il merito di portare all attenzione del vasto pubblico, in maniera intelligente, una materia rimasta fin allora confinata in lavori specialistici. La rassegna era ampia, a coprire enciclopedicamente ogni aspetto del problema, e comprendeva anche un breve scritto sui Peuples sans cartes nel quale si stabiliva che les cartes mentales sont nécessariement personnelles. Le immagini a corredo si riferivano ad esempi tipici della letteratura corrente: disegni di bambini, stick charts di navigazione delle isole Marshall, profili in legno eschimesi, una tabellina nella quale i caratteri ideografici egizi e cinesi erano accostati agli oggetti spaziali designati. I disegni dei bambini possono eventualmente essere considerati personali, ma non gli altri esempi: per questi si tratta di elaborazioni sociali applicate al territorio, frutto di una mentalità collettiva che a un certo punto richiede rappresentazione e descrizione sintetiche del dato spaziale, reale o convenzionale che sia. Popoli (non tribù) senza carte non esistono, né le mappe mentali si possono sempre considerare personali. Ogni carta geografica, ci ricorda Calvino, presuppone un idea narrativa ed è concepita in funzione d un itinerario. Narrazione e viaggio sono i presupposti del formarsi di qualunque popolo: il problema è il contenuto da dare alla parola carta, vocabolo equivoco se l orizzonte si apre alla mente e non soltanto alla sua rappresentazione. L esempio degli aborigeni australiani è illuminante a tale proposito. Lo scritto citato non mancava di sottolineare la specificità delle descrizioni orali dello spazio poi tracciate sulla sabbia dai popoli indigeni d Australia, in una cartografia temporanea caricata di sistemi di valori, si sosteneva, e non di relazioni spaziali vere e proprie. Ma a quell epoca, esattamente dal 1971, una cartografia aborigena stava entrando nell orizzonte scientifico attraverso una porta assai singolare: quella dell arte pittorica, o supposta tale come cercherò di dimostrare, su supporto mobile. Da quel momento le Vie dei canti, di cui Chatwin di lì a poco fornirà alla cultura europea un romantico ordito narrativo, cessano di essere memoria sociale per diventare rappresentazioni della superficie terrestre capaci di coniugare accortamente la dimensione mitologica, mentale per eccellenza, con la descrizione del territorio, sia urbano che territoriale. Urbano in senso lato, anche se non mancano rappresentazioni di insediamenti e città, e territoriale in senso stretto. Con quali sistemi di segni e relazioni fra valori socio culturali ciò sia potuto avvenire, e cosa può insegnare tale assunzione di problematiche all uomo occidentale nella ricerca dei parametri concettuali entro cui collocare manifestazioni difficili da ricondurre a un comune denominatore, e perciò sbrigativamente classificate etniche, sono gli obbiettivi della relazione proposta. L attenzione si indirizzerà specificatamente su quelle che chiamerei carte equivalenti : forse fatte per compiacere l uomo bianco (o d altri colori, in un sistema multietnico che non comprende gli aborigeni), ma certo utilissime per capire i meccanismi mentali di rappresentazione e descrizione delle variabili spaziali dei popoli senza scrittura. 17

18 Session B CADASTRAL SYSTEMS AND OTHER CENSUS TOOLS, XVIII-XX CENTURIES Session organisers: FLORENCE BOURILLON, Université de Paris XII-Val de Marne LUIGI LONDEI, Archivio di Stato di Roma Starting from the 18 th century, the strengthening of state machinery throughout Europe, went hand in hand with the necessity of an improved tax collection performance. Thus, the preconditions for the conception of systems and tools for evaluating wealth, of which cadastre is the most efficient example, were set. This session aims to give a progress report on the "images" of city as depicted and diffused by this type of documents. A series of questions can be raised, provided there exists a general consensus on the will for profiting from the increase of real estate values: how to evaluate a space saturated with constructions; how to address the urban margins, where in the period in between two cadastral revisions open spaces disappear while the built-up areas become denser; what to do when conjunctures real estate values take place? The urban development, resulting in concentration of people and richness and renewal of activities, brings about the invention of new tools for evaluating wealth, or at least the improvement of the existing ones. This session will investigate in first place the choices opted for and the adopted solutions (maps, matrices, tables, etc.), as well as the objectives of the actors concerned, the methods and forms of the evaluation and expertise, and finally, the participation of the different actors in the process. The analysis will then focus on the contents of this information. What "city portrait" is drawn by these data? What information does the later convey on urban change? To what extent do they represent an asset for the "measurement of city"? In this context, the question of the validity of these tools will be discussed by comparing them with other modes of representation of a city. Thus, the discussion about evaluation procedures, conditions of diffusion and influence on decision-making processes will enable us to evaluate the usefulness and the limits of the produced data. Session abstracts ALVIERO SISTRI Law, territory and power in old piedmont: game reserves and hunting districts around the capital The main topics of this presentation are the rules and regulations in game reserves and hunting districts around Turin, and the consequent impact of ducal and royal legislation on the transformation of Piedmontese territory between the second half of the XVI century and the end of the XVIII century. In particular, this presentation outlines the relationship between contemporary hunting legislation and the territory around Turin and other Piedmontese locations that are traditionally related to hunting. This research topic is strictly connected to vital historical issues which are also strictly related to the history of law and to the study of Piedmontese chorography. Particular attention will be given to the rationalization process of hunting which was carried out in Savoy territories over the XVII century. Moreover, equal importance will be given to different aspects of the organization of big hunting expeditions. Finally, the focus will shift to the contribution given by the Savoy to hunting map-making, which particularly in the XVIII century is rich in documents (i.e. a wide range of surveys carried out by royal surveyors, as well as boundaries established between reserves) from the reign of Carlo Emanuele III. SYLVAIN SCHOONBAERT The urban landscape of Bordeaux as seen through the cadastral surveys in the 19t h century Since 1790 in France, there have been two types of cadastral surveys used as census tools: one with the registered properties and incomes, and the other with the plans showing the boundaries of each plot and the boundaries between private property and public space. What landscape values can be conveyed by these documents? 18

19 The cadastral surveys, as they have not been regularly updated, reveal only a partial state of the city development to the historian, or to the town-planner. As a matter of fact, they lay more emphasis on the tax collecting process than on the actual changes of the urban landscape. Indeed, these plans are showing a city portrait in the long run, its deeper changes : the city being renovated as well as expanding into the suburbs and spreading over the countryside. We re going to study the case of Bordeaux and focus on the issues of its urban growth in the 19 th century. The first cadastral survey dating back to the early 19 th century ( ), was updated in 1850, then in 1865, at the time of fast economic growth. Moreover, later projects were added on the very same cadastral sheets, some of them which were to be achieved some fifty years later. So we may wonder - whether the drawing up of the survey can keep up with the actual growth of the city - whether this census tool can be used by historians and town planners as a mean to figure out its changes. Finally, we may say that the plans delivered by the cadastral survey convey a picture of the urban landscape in the making. KETI LELO The Pio-Gregorian Urban Cadastre of Rome as a Source for a Multidisciplinary Study of the City This study proposes an interpretation of Rome s territory using one of the most representational cartographic sources of the nineteenth century: the Pio-Gregorian Urban Cadastre, drawn up between 1818 and 1824 and edited by the Direzione generale dei catasti (cadastral headquarters). The results presented here are and integral part of a continuing project promoted by the Centro di ateneo per studio di Roma (CROMA) of the Università degli studi Roma Tre for the compilation of an Atlas of Modern and Contemporary Rome. The project integrates historical research and geographic information systems (GIS) and has as its objective the reconstruction of the city s evolution. This is carried out through a diachronic comparison based on diverse interpretations derived from the production of databases of historic, cartographic and thematic sources: a wide spectrum of history, firmly anchored to a territorial base. In 1816, two years after the return of the papal government, Pius VII issued the motu proprio on the reform of public administration, containing a provision that initiated the formation of the first cadastre rural and urban geographical parcel cadastral maps. These were to follow uniform criteria throughout the entire territory of the State. The same papal provision of 1816 entrusted the coordination of cadastral surveying to a special Congregation of Cadastres, composed of several prelates from the Apostolic Chamber and headed by Monsignor Cesare Guerrieri Gonzaga. The technical and administrative structure was headed by the Direzione Generale dei Catasti, with offices at the Presidenza del Censo, under which the Congregation of Cadastres was placed. The organization of the technical and administrative structures and the regulations instituted to execute the complex process of cadastral surveying were inspired largely by the French example. This was done also to avoid dissipating the work begun in the provinces which had already been part of the Papal State during their inclusion in the Kingdom of Italy. In keeping with this policy the decision was made to conform to the metric decimal system for all units of measure. The cadastral survey of rural and urban property within the Roman walls was assigned to two Roman architects, Gaspare Salvi and Giacomo Palazzi, members of the Academy of San Luca, in a contract drawn up in This contract stipulated the conversion of Nolli s map to a scale of 1 to 1,000, intended for the larger urban centers; the execution of all necessary updates and integrations; and delineation and progressive numeration all of the cadastral parcel maps. The Roman architects were expected to conform to all of the prescribed regulations for the representation of the various destinations of properties uses. The cadastral registration for Rome inside the walls was concluded well after the six months stipulated in the contract. Despite archival research, the methods actually employed by Salvi and Palazzi in drawing up the cadastral maps remain unclear and should, in our opinion, be investigated further. If the work had begun, as indicated in the documents, by increasing Nolli s maps in scale 1:1,000 and had subsequently continued with the longer and more complex work of surveying (particularly, the subdivision of blocks into cadastral parcels and the surveying of courtyards), there would probably have been greater geometric consistency between the different parts of the city. 19

20 Overall, the Roman architects produced 14 maps of the city, one for each rione [ward, neighborhood], organized into multiple pages (each about 64x89 cm) in proportion to the size of the territory represented, drawn in India ink and painted in water colors. Each map was then furnished with its own brogliardo [an appendix providing detailed information]. Two series of brogliardi have been preserved. The first series, probably drawn up for the greater part of the rioni between 1818 and 1820, contains for every parcel noted on the map the location and street number, the nature and intended use of the lot (or lots), the proprietor s personal information, the surface area and number of floors of the building. The second series, completed by 1823, contains updates and corrections and is provided with the current or obtainable rental price and correlated estimated values of the real estate units. The preparation of the second series of brogliardi was preceded by compilation of the registers of the isole estimative, in which the surveyors entered all the information necessary for evaluation with a detailed description of the number of property units and their planned use, occasionally broken down into more than one use, generally of considerably higher value than indicated in the brogliardi. The Cadastre was approved by the Secretary of State on 4 October 1823 and became effective the following January. Additional documentary series minor cadastres and transportation [catastini and trasporti] were undertaken by the cadastral administration to allow for updating, while during the 1870s the decision was made to seriously rectify and revise the urban cadastres by drawing up a new series of maps and brogliardi known as aggiornamenti (updates). The project remained incomplete at the time of Rome s annexation by the Kingdom of Italy and was therefore resumed and completed by the new Italian cadastral administration, according to the Kingdom s law of 11 August 1870 on building cadastres, and the subsequent Regulation of 5 June 1871, extended to Rome by Royal Decree no. 260 of 16 June The maps, the second series of brogliardi, and the new series of updates at the Urban Cadastre of Rome represent an extraordinary source for multilevel research on the city and its population during the Papal nineteenth century. The Cadastre of Rome constitutes a basic reference point for diachronic comparisons: with the past, through the valorization of eighteenth-century sources, with respect to which the Pio-Gregorian Cadastre is often invaluable for resolving interpretive doubts and gaps in the documentation; and with the present, for the study of contemporary Rome, from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. The information deduced from the cadastral cartography (by way of geo-referencing and vectorialization) and from the brogliardi (by way of the compilation of interconnected and cross-referenced databases), inserted in GIS opens the prospect of innovative research, centered on diachronic comparison and on the integration of diverse sources. The 1:1,000 scale in the cadastral maps, moreover, allows in-depth analysis of the city and its buildings. At present, the cataloguing of information has been completed for the fourteen rioni and the process of verification and testing is underway. While a comparison between the descriptive base and the cartographic one is possible, it remains a very complex process. The scope of the task undertaken in digitizing the cadastral maps and their associated brogliardi is immense. Rome within the walls has more than 10,508 cadastral parcels. The relationship between the total number of parcels and the area of each district may be considered indicative of the density of the built surface. As may be deduced from the statistics obtained from the database of the second brogliardo, out of a total of 15,658 lots, there are 302 units intended as gardens and 858 to be cultivated largely as vineyards and vegetable gardens. In conclusion, we must note once again the potential offered by the use of geographic information systems in historical research. Its uses are numerous, due to a flexible structure, capable of supporting increasing levels of increasing complexity and receiving a vast spectrum of overlapping and accessible information from different sources, thanks to recent technological developments, including the internet. This final aspect offers wide margins for experimentation: the field is continuously evolving and the successful examples of interactive GIS Web applications are still infrequent. In spite of a few interesting initiatives in recent years intended to reach a general public, there are virtually no examples of historical studies online. In addition to providing an aid to the conservation of paper documentation, the possibility of consulting online complex historical information, such as cadastres, would expedite and simplify the present process of archival consultation. This would result in important benefits in knowledge sharing at a national and international level within the research community and among the specialists in the fields of construction and restoration, as well as reaching a wider public. 20