Dall'immagine al modello Note sulla cartografia geometrica in Italia ...

di un sistema cartografico di riferimento, in un puntoposto in posizione centrale e, a partire da questo, rileva conl’Orizon le coordinate polari di ciascun particolare presentesul grafico, cioè direzioni e distanze dall’origine, così dacostruire una tabella composta dai nomi e dalla posizionedi ciascun particolare topografico rappresentato, come unasorta di pianta criptata. Tale tabella, ricavata dunque dauna restituzione grafica e non da un rilevamento direttosul territorio, costituisce un nuovo punto di partenza peril cartografo che volesse ottenere un’altra pianta, analoga aquella originaria, con la garanzia di restituire un modelloperfettamente sovrapponibile al precedente.Tempio Malatestiano,opera rimasta incompiuta di Leon Battista AlbertiMalatesta Temple,Leon Battista Alberti unfinished workSanta Maria Novella, Firenzehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Leon_Battista_Albertistvdio et diligenza in Roma (Modern Geographical Tablesof the most part of the World, by different authors andorganised according to the Ptolemaic order, with drawingsof various towns and fortresses, carefully printed throughcopper plates in Rome).Besides the economic aspects, however relevant they were,the most important element was the opening of new culturalhorizons. There was a true humus (“fertile ground”) thatcould bring to life the Italian “Cartographical Renaissance”.These were the basis for the future achievements in this fi eld.Nevertheless, the renewed success of Ptolemy drove some of themost sedentary scholars to the conclusion that it was enough toread his Geographia in order to discover the whole World (or,as we would say today, to make “virtual travels”). A persuasionclearly testifi ed by the verses written by Ludovico Ariosto(Satira III, dedicate to Sir Annibale Malaguzzi, 1518):The libraries of the most important people were enriched bythe new and sophisticated cartographical drawings of thePtolemaic Atlases. In the meanwhile, the representations ofthe territory for practical purposes - property rights, naturalresources employment, water fl ows regulations, legal contests,boundaries litigations between citizen or communities, accessto rights on rural estates, forests or stretches of water – is stilllinked to descriptive representations, sometimes with sketchesso naïf that could be today compared with child’s drawings.As an example, to understand how non-Ptolemaic63