Collezioni cartografiche e digital humanities per una nuova fruizione del patrimonio: il caso della Biblioteca Estense Universitaria di Modena

Digital humanities is an emerging discipline that has become increasingly popular in recent years, thanks to the implementation of numerous projects that aim at a dynamic dialogue between digital technologies and humanistic research. This is the scope of the project launched by the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria (BEU) di Modena in 2017, which, in collaboration with the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, included the study, cataloguing and digitization of the cartographic collection, along with the music collection and the Muratorian collection. This project led to the creation of a digital library, inaugurated in June 2020, which not only allowed the enhancement of the cartographic collection, still little known, and to make it available, albeit only virtually, to scholars, but also led to the adoption of the IIIF protocol that allows to compare, edit, annotate and share the documents of the Este collection and collections that participate in the same circuit, providing new useful tools for research. In this context, the contribution, starting from the presentation of the Estense Digital Library project, presents the cartographic collection of the BEU and offers a reflection on the potential that the new digital media provide for the study of cartography and, more broadly, of heritage in the digital age.

Acque e colture irrigue in Terra di Lavoro tra XVII e XVIII secolo. Una riflessione sul paesaggio dell’acqua tra economia e tutela

In the archive of the Abbey of Montecassino there is a judicial affair between the monks of the Abbey and the Duke of Mignano stored. The quaestio of the dispute is for the sowing of rice by the Duke who, despite several orders of prohibitions (1661, 1665), persists in cultivating it, causing, according to the Benedictine monks, “great damage to the universities of St. Vittore, St. Pietro Infine, Mignano” because “it affects the wholesomeness of these lands”. An unpublished large-scaled cartography is attached to this judicial dispute, whose graphic signs clarify and define the places of the diatribe also providing further information: we are in the Terra di Lavoro bathed by the river Peccia which is used and partly diverted to irrigate the Duke’s rice. The case study offers a lot of food for thought starting from the problematic relationship between the values of the environment and water resources, defended by the Benedictine monks, and the economic and productive needs of a local aristocracy with an entrepreneurial vocation. This contrast connects, recalling and confirming it, to the wider one that developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries linked to the spread of rice where doctors, agronomists, politicians have widely debated the problems raised by the spread of rice fields in the Peninsula.

Una rappresentazione diplomatica e di parte: il ritratto (geo)letterario della Tunisi di Guglielmo Collotti (1876)

The paper aims to retrace the (geo)-literary portrait of the city of Tunis by analysing the work Tunisi e il suo popolo. Studi impressioni e ricordi (Tunis and its people. Studies, impressions and memories), written by Guglielmo Collotti and published in Catania in 1876. This work is a travel report of a journey planned by Collotti with the excuse of presenting a “philanthropic” award to the sovereign of the Regency of Tunis. In fact, it gave the Sicilian nobleman the opportunity to visit the places inhabited by a large Italian community. The epistemological approach being adopted in the study, which is a geographical one, takes into consideration the historical and cultural context in which the author’s political beliefs developed: his interpretation of the landscape and the places he describes mirrors his choice of sometimes favouring colonial propaganda “Occidental” over the narration of events.

emigranti italiani tra confini e paesaggi di confine

In recent years a lot has been written about foreign migration in Italy, about the crossing of invisible borders that become liquid in the Mediterranean Sea, about the policies of exclusion that make Europe a fortress, about the narratives expressed by migrants and others actors who inform civil society of passages and invasions, less has been written on the crossing of borders by Italian emigrants. In this paper we want to analyze the relationship that has developed with borders by Italian emigrants, the role that these delimitations have assumed in the rhythms of life and socio-economic practices in the different national realities of the time, the importance of living on either side of a border in relation to being a desired or unwanted migrant and the representation of borders at the basis of some stereotypes, because borders, in the intertwining of their temporal, spatial and symbolic dimensions, have given life to numerous phenomena of differential inclusion.

La prego di voler gradire una mia Carta dei prodotti alimentari…

The Authors examine some elements of the work of the great cartographer Benedetto Marzolla (1801-1858) who, together with Carlo Afàn de Rivera, represents the best among the intellectuals and technicians that the Kingdom of Two Sicilies yielded before the Italian unification. This contrasts with the commonplace outlined be the Savoyard-Risorgimental propaganda which describes Naples and the Kingdom as a country inhabited by incapables, depraved and lazy persons. The Authors resume the theme of the Map of Nourishing Products, an excellent work not only because it describes the terrestrial and marine nourishing productions, but also for the connection with many agrarian landscapes and relative trades. Moreover, the Authors present the Map of Excise Duty (1830) another work of Marzolla together with Valentino, never known or considered by cartography scholars. This map does not seem to be cited inside the catalogues or inventories about Marzolla’s production, compiled by Valerio or by others authors in the frame of the analysis of the Royal Topographical Office of Naples (ROT), especially along the second half of the XIX century. The “modernity” of Marzolla manifests not only in consideration of anti-historical comparisons with actual excellent or “organic” food products, but for the analogies with the original proposals of Brunet, Ferras and other academics of the Maison de la Géographie. Unfortunately, Italian geographers have devoted little attention to this field of study.

Una lettera di Paolo Bajnotti a Cristoforo Negri nel contesto dell’esplorazione del Mar Morto nel XIX secolo

A letter in the archives of the Italian Geographical Society in which Paolo Bajnotti, an italian diplomat who had resided in Egypt, informs Cristoforo Negri about his trip to Palestine in 1869, before moving to Galaz for a new assignment, and about how he visited the Dead Sea thanks to the guidance of a Franciscan scholar who reported that he had personally observed that over the last ten years the level of the Dead Sea had dropped by about 95 cm, provides the opportunity for a historical overview of the exploration of the Jordan Valley from Lake Tiberias to the Gulf of Aqaba during the 19th century. What might seem to be a mere curiosity is in fact part of a very significant issue that was controversial among the geographers and cartographers of the time, as is clearly shown in Negri’s speech at the meeting of the Società Geografica Italiana on March 13th 1870. The level of the Dead Sea and the level of the Sea of Galilee, the resulting difference in height that the River Jordan has to cover with a significant average gradient, the lack of a rise in the level of the Dead Sea despite the absence of an estuary were questions that in the mid-19th century were still waiting for an answer supported by scientific data and free of pious or pseudo-scientific overtones. A numerous series of expeditions - some improvised, others well organized - gave some answers to these issues, removing any doubt and establishing that the entire hydrologic basin was significantly below the level of the Mediterranean, that the Jordan did not have a strong slope because it was very meandering, and that the Dead Sea’s level was regulated by the strong amount of evaporation that occurred throughout the year.

I tornado negli USA: un'analisi dell'archivio dati (1950-2018)

A statistical analysis of the data contained in the NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center tornado archive (covering the period 1950-2018) has been carried out. The actual average values of the frequencies for the various intensity classes could be effectively provided for the period 1991-2018, because of some inhomogeneities of the archive due to variations in the methods and procedures of tornado reporting. The time series of the frequency of F2, F3, F4 and F5 events showed decreasing trends; this decline seems largely due to a significant reduction of the strongest events. This interpretation is supported by the decreasing trends of normalized economic losses and of number of victims.

Riflessioni storiografiche italiane sulle civiltà del Sudest asiatico

This paper deals with the historiographic reflections on the civilizations of Southeast Asia, written by some Italian scholars who explored this area in the second half of the Nineteenth century. These texts were translations of summaries, unpublished notes intended for reworking, introduction to ethnographic studies. Their publication testifies to the trans-cultural circulation of historical and political information between Indochina and Italy, caused by political initiatives (the opening of diplomatic relations with Siam and Burma) and by expeditions financed by some scientific institutions, such as the Genoa Natural History Museum.

(Un)Expected Contemporary Public Space

The paper analyzes the contemporary concept of public space. It focuses the attention on the transformation of the traditional concept of public space into the idea of an alternative public space (i.e. collective space, open space, hybrid space, etc.). The methodology adopted for research purposes is mainly empirical. The case study analyzes the MAXXI museum in Rome, that shows a spontaneous birth of a (un) expected form of public space in the museum pole. This phenomenon expresses a clear need of an alternative, safe, cultural, innovative, contemporary, public space.