Towards a European Master

European territories (civilization, nation, region, city):

identity and development

Pour un Master Européen

Territoires européens (civilisation, nation, région, ville) :
identité et développement

Results and prospects / Bilan et perspectives

2005–2008

PARIS
RIS SOFIA PRAGUE
Towards a European Master / Pour un Master Européen
Towards a European Master
European territories (civilization, nation, region, city):
identity and development

Pour un Master Européen

Territoires européens (civilisation, nation, région, ville) :
identité et développement

Results and prospects / Bilan et perspectives

2005–2008

Edited by / Édité par

Gyöngyi Heltai, Gábor Sonkoly

Atelier Budapest
2008
 © Gyöngyi Heltai, Gábor Sonkoly, 2008.

© Atelier, 2008

Book published in the frames of the

Socrates Erasmus Curriculum Development Project
Ouvrage publié dans le cadre du programme du projet de développement
d’un programme d’études Socrates Erasmus :
45677-IC-1-2004-1-HU-ERASMUS-PROGUC-3

Layout: Kalonda Bt.

Cover: Advercomm

ISBN 978-963-86891-9-1
Contents / Sommaire
Introduction 7
Histoire de TEMA / TEMA History 9

Partenaires de TEMA / TEMA Partners 17

UNIVERSITÉ EÖTVÖS LORÁND (ELTE) DE BUDAPEST 19

Gábor Sonkoly: « Pays », sciences sociales et politique, fin du XIXe –
début du XXe siècle. 21
Gábor Czoch: The Question of Urban Citizens’ National Identity
in Mid-Nineteenth Century Hungary 34
Zoltán Krasznai: Les représentations cartographiques
de la révision, en Hongrie entre les deux guerres 53

CATANIA UNIVERSITY 67
Enrico Iachello: Centralisation étatique et pouvoir local
en Sicile au XIXe siècle 69
Melania Nucifora: Identité et développement :
la contribution de la recherche historique 95
Paolo Militello: The island of maps 102

BABEȘ-BOLYAI UNIVERSITY OF CLUJ 125

Vilmos Keszeg: L’integration des superstitions
dans les structures cognitives 127

ÉCOLE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES (EHESS), PARIS 153

Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier: « Pays », sciences sociales
et politique, fin du XIXe – début du XXe siècle. 155
Nicolas Verdier: En quoi peut-on parler
de déterritorialisation en France au XIXe siècle ? 172

CHARLES UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE 183

Luďa Klusáková: On the Border Between Urban and Rural:
Public usage of Historical and Cultural Heritage in Building
Collective Identity (1990–2007) 185

SVETI KLIMENT OHRIDSKI UNIVERSITY OF SOFIA 209

Dessislava Lilova: La géographie bulgare de la première moitié
du XIXe siècle : transfert et adaptation des rationalités modernes 211
6 TEMA

Documents de TEMA / TEMA Documents 227

Résumé du projet 229

Consortium Agreements 242
La structure de l’enseignement du programme du Master TEMA 254
Complete Bibliography 258
TEMA Booklet for Quality Assurance 288

TEMA à Bruxelles / TEMA in Brussels 297

Documents of the Meeting 299

Programme of the Meeting 303
Photoes of the Meeting 304
Reports by the Students 309
Caricatures by Caroline Bougourd 319
Eszter György: « Ghetto ludique » à Budapest : le quartier
comme représentation 322

Annexe de TEMA / TEMA Annex 335

Introduction

The TEMA Erasmus Curriculum Development Project is the result of a long

working relationship between researchers and university professors. This
relationship was based on mutual scientific interest as well as on shared human
values. These values could make a long list, but I would like to mention only
those four here, which were necessary to make our common achievements
possible. These are: openness, tolerance, empathy and critical approach.
Openness was essential to start a dialogue between different countries, nations
and disciplines. Tolerance was unavoidable to appreciate unusual rapprochements
often expressed with a strange vocabulary or in a broad foreign accent. These
two values made the way for empathy, through which the essence of these
approaches could have been mastered. Critical approach in scientific research
was the common denominator of the forefathers of this cooperation, what made
a shared platform in the fuzziness of national and disciplinary differences.
The École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris has
always been a pilot institution of the above mentioned values. In the late 1980’s,
when the politically divided two parts of the European continent could approach
each other in more formal ways, the EHESS established a set of “Ateliers” in
Central European capitals. Out of these University research centres, the Budapest
one has become a Department and a PhD School at the History Institute of the
Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), where a dozen scholars and professors teach
the critical approach to history and social sciences, known as the Annales-school
approach, to hundreds of students yearly. The TEMA cooperation was originally
based on the working relationship between the History and Social Geography
Centres of EHESS and the Atelier Department of ELTE. These institutions were
already part of a widespread network of European centres of research and study,
which became the basis of the TEMA Master Curriculum Development Project.
The Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj/Kolozsvár, the Catania University, the
Charles University of Prague, the Sveti Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia as
well as two research centres, the “Geography-cities” Research Laboratory of the
National Centre of Scientific Research of Paris and the Teleki László Institute of
Budapest were eager to join this common project. Thus a fairly large group of
experts of social territories and territory development was formed to channel the
results of their research to a common university curriculum in 2004.
Now, four years later, we are extremely glad to present the results of this fruitful
cooperation. After years of exchange of ideas and common research, after many
days of personal meetings, the TEMA team has managed to realize all its original
goals. This current volume shows clearly how successful this cooperation has been.
First, the history of the TEMA activities is demonstrated from the first
Budapest meeting till the last great event in 2008, i.e. the Closing Conference
8 TEMA

at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels. This section is followed by the

presentation of the partner universities. Each local team is demonstrated
through a general description and by some articles, which were the results of our
discussion during the TEMA meetings. The third section contains the official
documents of the TEMA programme from the initial description of the project
up to the common achievements: the original goals and perspectives of the
TEMA project, the TEMA Consortium Agreements signed by the rectors of
each partner university, the structure of the TEMA programme of study, the
complete bibliography of the four TEMA textbooks and the TEMA Booklet
for Quality Assurance. The above mentioned Closing Conference in Brussels is
summarized in the last section.
Thanks to the three years of intense cooperation, the TEMA Project has
become a fully fledged European Interdisciplinary Master Programme, in which
the professors and researchers of six different European universities could start
spreading the above mentioned shared values of openness, tolerance and empathy
through a scientifically highly demanding critical approach aiming tacit skills in
everyday practice. TEMA members fully agree that our achievements must be
offered to not only European students, but to students from all over the world.
Accordingly, the TEMA team strongly wishes to mobilize its non-European
research contacts to enlarge its network. The declarations of intent, which can be
found in the annexe of the currant volume shows clearly that this network already
spreads over three continents. Our team is ready to continue our education,
research and cooperation in the format of an ERASMUS MUNDUS Master
Course. Our shared experience is definitely a solid basis for this common goal.

Budapest, 5th November 2008

Gábor Sonkoly
TEMA coordinator
Histoire de

TEMA
History
Melania Nucifora • Identité et développement : la contribution de la recherche historique 101

les des ressources, utiles à la construction de nouvelles relations plus cohérentes

entre les systèmes humains et naturels, ouvrent la voie à la reterritorialisation
des modes de vie des communautés locales, et ceci à travers la récupération de
la dimension territoriale locale, comme espace d’identification, et la jouissance
du paysage, comme narration identitaire et lieu du projet futur. Ces objectifs
ne peuvent être atteints que par le biais d’une restitution des significations, qui
se fonde sur une cohérence retrouvée entre la lecture diachronique des milieux
territoriaux et la planification du territoire.
L’interprétation innovatrice et sensible des images restituées par l’histoire
doit devenir, à travers la multiplication des projets formatifs pluridisciplinaires,
l’important substrat culturel des nouvelles politiques de développement.
Paolo Militello

The island of maps

Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age

Giuseppe Giarrizzo, summing up the various trends in the historical research, has
recently pointed out how one among the other ways-out has aroused increasing
attention in recent years; he was referring to the space dimension of the research,
which thus balanced the time-space relationship not only in the French and
Anglo-Saxon cultures (which certainly were not new to these approaches) but
also in Italy and Germany – the “lands of historicism”1. Within this trend and
this change in the ways to ‘view’ space2, an ever more growing interest in his-
torical cartography has emerged: a means of “cultural liberation” which helps
retrieve history even in images3.
In the history of cartography, geographical maps and ancient views of cities
have had a great influence over researchers or simple observers which has often
led, as Enrico Iachello has pointed out, to an almost contemplative attitude
resulting in a description/classification of the elements and the characteristics of
the map or, at most, in a study of the evolution of the knowledge and the tech-
niques4. Maps seem to blind the scholar. Current trends, though, are beginning
to read the images of the past by also trying to investigate the external reason
which produces and legitimates them and to identify the point of view of the
cartographer even if the historical reconstruction is still often in search of suita-
ble questions and paths, above all as regards the historical cartography of Sicily.
Iconographic images “convey” but, at the same time, produce ideas of the
represented territory; they “celebrate, depict, design, perform but are, at the
same time, transformed within a process whose favoured interpretive princi-
ple is a category of social practice: ‘appropriation’”5. Beside the evolution of
knowledge and techniques it is necessary to add new elements to understand
the historicity of the maps: the search for causality or systemic connections,

1 Giuseppe Giarrizzo, “Preface” to E. Iachello, Immagini della città. Idee della città. Città nella
Sicilia (XVIII-XIX secolo) (Catania: 2000), pp. 9–10.
2 Cf. B. Lepetit and B. Salvemini, “Percezioni dello spazio. Premessa”, in Quaderni Storici no.
90, issue 3 (Dec. 1995), pp. 595–600.
3 On the relationship between images and history, see, among others, F. Haskell, Le immagini
della storia. L’arte e l’interpretazione del passato (Torino:1997).
4 “Too often the contemplation of the map seems to remove the need for an interpretation”.
E. Iachello, “Appunti sulla cartografia storica della Sicilia”, in Idem, ed., L’isola a tre punte.
La cartografia storica della Sicilia nella collezione La Gumina (XVI-XIX secolo) (Palermo: 2001),
p. 26.
5 Iachello, Immagini della città, p. 15.
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 103

which explain the forms being observed6, becomes valuable along with the pure
description.
The history of cartography is young. For this subject matter the begin-
ning of a conscientious epistemology and of a greater awareness in the areas of
research7, which, distancing the individual from the previous phase, contributed
to start shaping them with a scientific identity of their own, can be traced back
to the 1930s. Through the publication of general histories of the subject matter
(first attempts at syntheses) or of specialized magazines (such as “Imago Mundi”
from 1935) as well as through the emergence of a cartography considered as an
academic subject matter8, the history of cartography has tried to reach its own
intellectual independence from the history of geography and of explorations as
well as from the traditional models of the history of sciences. Although in Italy,
in particular, in the aftermath of World War II, from the geographical point
of view the deaths of prestigious experts in the subject such as, among others,
Roberto Almagià, wasn’t followed by the appearance of personalities of the same
importance9, in the context of the history of cartography a certain dynamism
has been recorded above all since the 1970s-1980s10, despite contributions often
being fragmentary and lacking unifying concepts.
At the end of the 1980s, though, John Brian Harley was still highlighting
the difficulties in a historiographical11 analysis which was particularly compli-
cated because of the fragmentary nature of a literature whose works could often
be collocated in other fields of knowledge12. Through methods and objectives
which were in a formative state13, the history of cartography came to occupy a no
man’s land among various areas of culture: geography, history and bibliography
6 P. Claval, Histoire de la géographie (Paris : 1995), p. 6.
7 J.B. Harley, “The Map and the Development of the History of Cartography”, in J.B. Harley
and D. Woodward, The History of Cartography. Volume One. Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient,
and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean (Chicago & London: 1987), p. 23.
8 To this purpose J.B. Harley makes a distinction between “cartography as the ancient art and
science of making maps in a practical sense (and its products) and cartography as an organized
method by which maps are studied, investigated, and analyzed”. Ibid., p. 3.
9 L. Gambi, “Uno schizzo di storia della geografia in Italia”, in Idem, Una geografia per la storia
(Torino: 1973), p. 31.
10 Elio Manzi, for example, has demonstrated the positive development of the subject in Italy
through a qualitative analysis of the effective results. (E. Manzi, “La storia della cartografia”, in
La ricerca geografica in Italia, 1960–1980 (Milano: 1980), pp 327–336).
11 J.B. Harley, The Map and the Development of the History of Cartography, p. 23.
12 In 1933 Skelton, while analyzing the first annual bibliography of “Imago Mundi”, came to the
conclusion that, of the listed articles, “some were published… in journals of geography, history,
local history, geodesy and survey, hydrography and navigation, the history of science. But arti-
cles on early maps appeared in many other less obvious quarters-periodicals devoted to physi-
cal science, biology, agriculture, magnetism, economics, political science, art history, oriental
studies, the classics, archaeology, printing history, bibliography and library science, archives”
(R.A. Skelton, Maps: A Historical Survey of Their Study and Collecting (Chicago: 1972), pp.
101–102).
13 J.W. Konvitz, Cartography in France. 1660–1848, Science, Engineering, and Statecraft (Chicago
& London: 1987), p. XVII.
104 TEMA

constitute the main points of its literature in which, significantly, not even the
basic definitions have been clearly formulated yet14.
But in the last years of the 20th century editorial initiatives such as the His-
tory of Cartography which, starting from 1987, was led by John Brian Harley and
David Woodward on behalf of the University of Chicago Press, or innovative
exhibitions (and the relevant catalogues) such as the one held at the Pompidou
Centre in Paris in 198015, have highlighted the attempt made by the subject
matter to define its own identity in the field of the general renovation of the
human sciences16, even though, just ten years ago, Christian Jacob was still writ-
ing that “en France la discipline est aujourd’hui encore embryonnaire, car résult-
ant de traditions intellectuelles, de familles de pensée trop disparates” and that
“elle n’a pas encore de statut institutionnel ni de modèles prégnants, et reflète
la crise d’autres disciplines jeunes, lointaines parents (l’histoire des sciences) ou
proches cousines (l’histoire de la géographie)”.
Even in the most recent studies of historical cartography on Sicily and
Southern Italy contributions can be found which make it possible to base the
research on new elements. Although up to some years ago publications were lim-
ited, with some exceptions, to splendid volumes rich in illustrations, in which,
however, the interpretive effort was often confused with erudition, or with sim-
ple description and cataloguing, in recent years contributions have been made
aimed at exorcizing the ‘laziness’ of the historian towards historical cartography,
which was admired and copied, but rarely reconstructed. This is the case, for
example, of the Italian-French conference: Per un atlante storico del Mezzogiorno
e della Sicilia in età moderna17 (Catania 1995), where historians, cartographers
and geographers began a reflection which involved not only the history of car-
tography but also historical and thematic cartography, or the recent catalogue
L’isola a tre punte. La cartografia storica della Sicilia nella collezione La Gumina
(XVI-XIX secolo)18, where the collaboration between the collector and the histo-
rian created interesting opportunities for reflection and exchange of views, and
the volume, published in 2002, Le mappe della storia. Proposte per una cartografia

14 Preface, in J.B. Harley and D. Woodward, The History of Cartography, p. XV.

15 Various Authors, Cartes et figures de la terre (Paris : 1980). Moreover, in France there have been
valuable contributions to the development of this subject matter through the works of Fran-
çois de Dainville (La géographie des humanistes (Paris: 1940); Le langage des géographes. Termes,
signes, couleurs des cartes anciennes. 1500–1800 (Paris: 1964) and of Numa Broc (La géographie
de la Renaissance. 1420–1620 (Paris: 1986) (It. transl. La geografia del Rinascimento. Cosmografi,
cartografi, viaggiatori. 1420–1620 (Modena: 1996)); La géographie des philosophes. Géographes et
voyageurs français au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: 1975); Regards sur la géographie française, de la Renais-
sance à nos jours (Perpignan: 1994)).
16 For Italy see, among others, M. Milanesi, ed., L’Europa delle carte. Dal XV al XIX secolo, autori-
tratti di un Continente (Milano: 1990); Various Authors, Segni e sogni della terra. Il disegno del
mondo dal mito di Atlante alla geografia delle reti (Novara:2001).
17 The conference proceedings have been published in E. Iachello and B. Salvemini, eds., Per un
atlante storico del Mezzogiorno e della Sicilia in età moderna. Omaggio a Bernard Lepetit (Napoli:
1998).
18 E. Iachello, ed., (Catania: 2001).
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 105

del Mezzogiorno e della Sicilia in età moderna19, which can be considered another
opportunity for a confrontation between historians and cartographers.

In one of his latest works Bernard Lepetit urged scholars to question the tra-
ditional questionnaire of the history of cartography based on the exclusive (and,
in many respects, limiting) link between reality and representation: “un travail
de cartographie du passé n’échappe à aucun des caractères ni à aucune des inter-
rogations qui appartiennent au savoir historique. Il pose en particulier toutes les
questions que rencontre la modélisation, et toutes celles que pose l’articulation
d’un discours d’aujourd’hui avec les pratiques d’hier”20.
Jacob’s observations – to which I referred earlier – reveal their importance
and their limits. His attempt to establish the autonomy of the cartographic
research and of the history of cartography leads him to consider the maps as
a system of elaborate and self-sufficient signs. Thus maps acquire significance
in a “writing” (their production) and in a “reading” (their reception). The tools
for interpretation seem, however, not to take into account the contents which
are elaborated in the production-reception process. The semiological approach
proposed by Jacob has an ahistorical nature: the explanation, for example, of
the function given to the geometrical figures is brought back to the indications
of Gestalttheorie and to the analysis of Jean Piaget’s child psychology. In other
words, the effort to make historical cartography – the subject – autonomous
results in the setting up of an object whose autonomy is based on a timeless
structure of the workings which give meaning to the maps.
On the contrary, Jonathan Spence, by reconstructing the teaching of geog-
raphy of the Jesuits21, shows how the memorization of a territory wasn’t car-
ried out through geometrical simplification but through projection over another
physical space. Thus Michael Baxandall’s22 indications are more profitable when,
in the analysis of the Italian painting of the 15th century, he uses the interpre-
tive contexts of the time, the only ones capable of helping us to understand
that “complicity” between the author and the observer which, precisely, – in our
case – give meaning to the map.
How to identify this complicity between the cartographer and the “reader”?
Up until some years ago, studying traditions of historical cartography would
follow remarkably varied directions: on the one hand there is the a posteriori
reconstruction – which starts from texts and/or quantitative data – of the space
distribution of past phenomena (settlements, cultivations, roads, etc.), on the
other hand there is the reproduction of ancient cartographic documents which
is usually done to comment on their graphic technique or to read them from
19 G. Giarrizzo and E. Iachello, eds., (Milano: 2002).
20 B. Lepetit, “Cartes d’aujourd’hui et cartes d’hier”, in E. Iachello and B. Salvemini, eds, Per un
atlante storico del Mezzogiorno e della Sicilia in età moderna, p. 264.
21 Cf. J.D. Spence, Il Palazzo della memoria di Matteo Ricci (Milano: 1987).
22 M. Baxandall, Pittura ed esperienze sociali nell’Italia del Quattrocento (Torino: 1978).
106 TEMA

a semiological perspective. This division assumes a historical reality objectively

reconstructed (maps which have been elaborated by the historians nowadays) on
the one hand, an “imperfect” or ideologically biased view on the other hand.
These two directions lead us away from the indications we have here accepted.
It is convenient to identify the geographical “contexts” to obtain useful infor-
mation for our purpose. A starting point is provided by the descriptions which
often accompany and explain the maps: this is, after all, a choice which is sug-
gested, almost required, by the modes of the cartographic production. For exam-
ple, the most important maps of Sicily, those which, as we will see, represent the
reference models, if not the “matrix” of historical cartography on the island, over
the various ages, have always a description behind them; cartographers resort
to Sicilian scholars, often urging them expressly to elaborate their maps. The
descriptions thus represent an element of complicity between the map and its
users. No different, after all, from the Grand Tour travellers who urged local
scholars to enrich not only the routes of their journey, but also the narration of
it: or better still, places often never seen could be thus described anyway. It is
what often occurs to our cartographers.
This work is based on these premises. In the first part, a preliminary contex-
tualization of the cartographic representations, which could not disregard the
analysis of the island, is dealt with: space is not a neutral container, a place whose
identity is to be determined through the naturalistic determinism of geopolitics;
it is not a natural datum but an historical one. To define it, then, all possible lev-
els of analysis have been taken into consideration in the attempt to identify and
retrace its connections. The study of the landscape and of the territory has, thus,
been carried out through an approach which draws on its cultural, economic,
demographic and political composition. Once the “context” was outlined, the
reconstruction of the evolution of the process of the cartographic representation
of the island was attempted by paying particular attention to the regional scale.

Representations and self-represenations of an island

What was the image of Sicily which could be drawn from the cartographic
descriptions and representations in the modern age? An attempt to reconstruct
the modes of representation – and self-representation – of the island will be
make by reading pages from Tommaso Fazello (the author of De Rebus Siculis
decades duae, published in Palermo in 155823, of which the first Decade rep-

23 For the quotations the edition with additions, published by Vito Amico (F. Thomae Fazelli…
De Rebus Siculis… ab Vito M. Amico, et Statella… illustrata (Catania: 1749)) in Catania in
1749, has been used. For the Italian translation, see T. Fazello, Della storia di Sicilia deche
due del R.P.M. Tommaso Fazello siciliano tradotte in lingua toscana dal P.M. Remigio Fiorentino
(Palermo: 1817). On Fazello, see the relevant entry edited by R. Contarino in Dizionario Bio-
grafico degli Italiani (Roma: 1995), vol. 45, pp. 493–496.
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 107

resents the first true treatise of Sicilian historical geography of the modern
age) and those compiled by the royal historiographer Vito Amico (whose Lexicon
Topographicum Siculum, printed in Palermo and Catania from 1757 to 176024,
represents the first true topographic dictionary of Sicily).
The image of Sicily has almost always been characterized by insularity, by its
triangular shape very soon epitomized in a logo (the Trinacria or Triquetra) and
by the presence of its volcano, Etna. In the ancient world, the similarity between
the geographic form of Sicily and the geometric shape of the triangle was already
not only a geographic tradition but also a literary one, and it has been built
upon definitively, in the modern age, by Fazello25. “La Sicilia avendo per natura
forma di triangolo, ha tre lati ma disuguali: il settentrionale, ricurvo in qualche
parte, il meridionale e l’orientale, un poco concavo. Il lato orientale, uno dei cui
angoli è Peloro e l’altro Pachino, è la sua base. Gli altri due lati delimitano sensi-
bilmente, da una parte, il mare Tirreno, dall’altra il Punico, fino a congiungersi
a Lilibeo e a costituire la punta del Triangolo”26. Two centuries later, this image
of Sicily as the “three-pointed island” still lives in the pages of Vito Amico: “Le
tre punte per tanto colle quali il Peloro, il Pachino, il Lilibeo si terminano, cele-
bre resero la Sicilia negli antichi tempi, che come di lei simbolo imprimevansi
nelle medaglie, rappresentate da tre gambe”27.
Both our authors use a “visual” description of the island, which is almost
created on the basis of a cartographic image (a procedure which will also charac-
terize the pages of later writers). The “drawing” which is obtained from Fazello
seems to draw on Ptolemaic images which were then widespread in the culti-
vated environments which he knew very well. Vito Amico’s drawing will become
even more detailed, thus almost creating the impression that the reader could

24 Lexicon Topographicum Siculum… studio et labore… Viti M. Amico et Statella, tomus primus,
pars prima; tomi primi pars altera, Palermo 1757; tomus secundus, pars prima; tomi secundi pars
altera (Catania: 1759); tomus tertius; tomi tertii pars altera (Catania: 1760). For the Italian
translation the Dizionario topografico della Sicilia di Vito Amico tradotto dal latino ed annotato
da Gioacchino Dimarzo, 2 vols. (Palermo: 1855–56) has been used. On Amico see the relevant
entry edited by R. Zapperi in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 2 (Roma: 1960), pp.
789–790.
25 G. Giarrizzo, “La Sicilia dal Cinquecento all’Unità d’Italia”, in V. D’Alessandro and G. Giar-
rizzo, La Sicilia dal Vespro all’Unità d’Italia, vol. XVI of the History of Italy edited by G. Galasso
(Torino: 1989), p. 100.

26 Fazello, De Rebus Siculis, book I, ch. I, p. 2. (Sicily, being triangular-shaped by nature, has got
three sides – irregular, however: the northern side which is curved in certain parts, the southern
and eastern sides which are a little concave. The eastern side, one of its angles being Peloro and
the other Pachino, forming its base. The other two sides considerably delimit the Tyrrhenian
Sea on the one hand and the Punic Sea on the other, until they join Lilibeo and form the point
of the Triangle).
27 Amico, Lexicon Topographicum Siculum, tomus primus, pars prima, p. XVIII. (The three points
which end with Peloro, Pachino and Lilibeo made Sicily famous/renowned in ancient times,
and were imprinted on medals and represented by three legs).
108 TEMA

go along the outline of the coast drawn by the cartographer28, stretch by stretch.
Thanks to the enthusiasm of Humanism and the Renaissance for the rediscov-
ery of Greek and Latin, the drawing of the island in Fazello is also carried out
imitating the form of the Greek letter delta “∆”29, through a formula which will
be reproposed in the mid-eighteenth century: “Rassomiglia la Sicilia per la sua
forma il Greco ∆ e l’ineguale triangolo”30.
Moreover, this image, which is also cartographic, is loaded with myths and
symbols: like Sicily, the map which depicts it is a mythic or symbolic place
itself31. For Fazello – and not just for him – Mount Etna as well becomes a myth
among the beauties of Sicily. Such a powerful image, such a constant presence
in the descriptions and the representations, that up until the 18th century it had
been possible to claim that Sicily was given birth by Etna, by its magma, “sic-
ché – svuotata per le continue eruzioni della lava – il vulcano si preparerebbe,
nuovo Saturno, a inghiottir la creatura che aveva generato”32.
In these representations, however, the island is never an inaccessible place,
like many other places which are “isolated” from the rest of the world33. On the
contrary, the descriptions exalt its openness towards other horizons. “Peloro
guarda Ceni, estrema punta d’Italia, Pachino il Peloponneso, Lilibeo Mercu-
rio, promontorio d’Africa”34: in this way Fazello draws on Strabone through an
image which, still in the 18th century, Vito Amico will use, by quoting the words
of the Greek historian and geographer: “Dan forma all’isola tre promontori; il
Peloro… che colla terra dei Reggini si comunica per uno stretto… il Pachino,
che volto ad Oriente. guarda il Peloponneso e la via di Creta; il Lilibeo confi-
nante coll’Africa alla quale è rivolto verso Nord-Ovest”35. So the island becomes
a bridge in a sea which can be an obstacle but which is, above all, a way of com-
munication; and, significantly, Sicily is nearly always described as starting from
the sea, from its coasts, so as to emphasize the privileged relationship with the
Mediterranean. To begin a reflection on the space of the island means, then, not

28 Ibid., p. XIX.
29 Fazello, De Rebus Siculis, book. I, ch. I, p. 2.
30 Amico, Lexicon Topographicum Siculum, tomus primus, pars prima, p. XVIII. (Because of its
shape, Sicily resembles the Greek ∆ and the irregular triangle).
31 G. Giarrizzo, “Introduction” to L. Dufour and A. La Gumina, Imago Siciliae. Cartografia storica
della Sicilia 1420–1860 (Catania: 1998), p. 11.
32 Giarrizzo, “Introduction” to E. Iachello, L’isola a tre punte, p. 9. (so that – emptied by the
continuous lava eruptions – the volcano would get ready, like a new Saturn, to swallow the
creature it had generated).
33 U. Eco, “Preface” to B. Bordone, Isolario (Milano: 2000; Venezia: 1534), pp. VII-VIII.
34 Fazello, De Rebus Siculis, book I, ch. I, p. 2. (Pelorus looks at Ceni, the farthest point of Italy,
Pachinus at the Peloponnesus, Lilibeus at Mercury, the African promontory).
35 Amico, Lexicon Topographicum Siculum, tomus primus, pars prima, pp. XVIII-XIX. (Three
promontories shape the island; Pelorus… which connects to the land of the inhabitants of Reg-
gio through a strait… Pachinus which, facing the East, looks at the Peloponnesus and the way
to Crete; Lilibeus which borders Africa and turns to it from the North-West).
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 109

to be satisfied with the physical evidence which, from a methodological point of

view, is often completely misleading36.
In the first centuries of the modern age the representation of Sicily high-
lights, then, its connecting role with Africa, a role which can be found not
only – as will be seen later – in the literary descriptions but also in the car-
tographic representations. In a century such as the 16th century, in which the
“open” Sicily becomes the “African” island of Moncada or, along with Malta
and Tunis, the “boundary line” of the Spanish empire, the strategic value of this
“island of the Mediterranean which lies between Italy and Africa”37 – as Fazello
writes – can be reasonably highlighted. A role which is once again confirmed in
the 18th century, even when the historical context has decidedly changed and, in
the swinging between the two continents, the island has clearly turned towards
the European continent. As Vito Amico will write: “qui mi viene in mente costi-
tuire il promontorio australe (meridionale) i confini d’Europa collo monte Calpe
di Spagna, e col capo Tenero oggi Maino nel Peloponneso; ed è perciò che io
sospetto appellarsi capo Passaro o Passalo, poiché può di là tragittarsi nell’altra
parte del mondo, nell’Africa”. [It comes into mind that the southern promon-
tory forms the borders of Europe together with Mount Calpe in Spain and Cape
Tenero, which today is called Maino, in the Peloponnesus; and this is why I sus-
pect it is called cape Passaro or Passalo, since it can stretch out to Africa, the
other part of the world].

The economic and demographic landscape and the administration of the

territory are strictly connected with the cultural elaboration of the island space
(the cultivated fields, the commercial networks, the roads, the towns and the
settlements).
It is once again Fazello who provides us with a detailed description of the
island divided into its three “regioni” (regions). The region of Val Demone “ha
un aspetto selvaggio di monti e valichi difficili, che si succedono gli uni agli
altri senza interruzione, ed è coperta di boschi fittissimi; per la sua alta posi-
zione è più elevata delle altre due. Da ciò deriva che in essa scarseggiano il fru-
mento e le altre messi mentre abbondano l’olio e la seta”38. Vito Amico, who,
in part, draws on Fazello’s description, will add: “L’Etna, il più alto monte della
bassa Italia, i Nebrodi dopo l’Etna ed il Nettunio tengono gran parte della Valle.
Il fiume Simeto, che è il primo in Sicilia pel corso e per la copia delle acque,
ne bagna i campi”39. The region of the Val di Noto “nella sua maggior parte
36 Iachello, Cartografia storica e rappresentazione dello spazio siciliano, p. 94.
37 Fazello, De Rebus Siculis, book I, ch. I, p. 2.
38 Ibid., book X, ch. I, p. 402. (appears wild with its uninterrupted series of difficult peaks and
valleys and is covered in very thick woods; it is higher than the other two because of its elevated
position. As a consequence, it has a scarcity of wheat and the other crops, whereas it is rich in
oil and silk).
39 Amico, Lexicon Topographicum Siculum, tomus tertius pars prima, p. 7. (Mount Etna which is
the highest peak of lower Italy, the Nebrods, after Mount Etna, and Nettunio, occupy most
110 TEMA

è sassosa e ha monti più bassi degli altri di Sicilia e pianure largamente coperte
di pietre, nelle quali tuttavia abbondano le messi e cresce l’erba, che fornisce
abbondante pascolo per le bestie. Produce in abbondanza frumento, vino, miele
e bestiame”40.
Nonetheless, there is not a shortage of fertile plains, among which there
is the Plain of Catania “ché piana si estende per ben 40 miglia, a nessun’altra
seconda nell’isola, pingue, ferace, irrigua”, as well as Mount Lauro, “il cui giogo
si estende in ampia e lunga pianura, a pochi delle altre Valli minore di altezza”41.
And, finally, the region of Mazara with its “fecondissime piantagioni di fru-
mento e di altre messi, nonché vino, olio e miele apprezzatissimi… buoi e altri
armenti e greggi”42, but also with its mountains which are “molto alte, ripide,
orride, sterili e del tutto prive di alberi”43 e con “boschi, bagni salutari e laghi
abbondanti di pesca”44.
The three points thus find a place in the description of the territory and of
its products: the tripartite scheme of Sicily (the Sicily of silk and oil, the Sicily
of livestock, the Sicily of grain) becomes the standard and the “tutto letterario
e forestiero” (all literary and foreign) myth of a Sicily which is “ricca, per natu-
rale dovizia, di ogni derrata e però capace di assicurare facile cibo ai suoi abitanti
e fasto – per la consistente estrazione del superfluo – ai suoi raffinati signori”45.
A producing and exporting Sicily; and, although in the 18th century the island
is no longer among the Mediterranean countries which export grain, it still has
a considerable commerce of silk, oil, citrus fruit and wine46.
Besides the numerous small “caricatori” (loading places), it is above all the
ports of Palermo, Messina and, to a lesser extent, Trapani which manage the
traffic; to these three ports, the minor ports of Termini, Marsala, Agrigento,
Syracuse and Augusta47, with their mixed fortunes, must be added. A commerce

part of the Valley. The Simeto, which is the most important river in Sicily for its length and for
the abundance of its water, flows through its fields).
40 Fazello, De Rebus Siculis, book X, ch. II, p. 426. (is mostly stony and has mountains which
are less high than the others in Sicily and plains which are largely covered in stones, where,
however, the harvest abounds and the grass grows, thus providing the animals with a luxuriant
pasture. It produces plenty of wheat, wine, honey and livestock).
41 V. Amico, Lexicon Topographicum Siculum, tomus primus, pars prima, p. 3. (since it stretches
for over 40 miles, it is second to no other plain and it is rich, fertile and well-watered as well as
Mount Lauro whose top stretches in a large and long plain, and it is less high than only a few
Valleys).
42 Fazello, De Rebus Siculis, book X, ch. III, p. 467. (highly fertile wheat and other crop planta-
tions, as well as greatly valued wine, oil and honey… oxen and other herds and flocks).
43 Ibid.
44 Amico, Lexicon Topographicum Siculum, tomus secundus pars prima, p. VIII.
45 Giarrizzo, La Sicilia dal Cinquecento all’Unità d’Italia, p. 100. (rich, by natural abundance, in
all goods and able to ensure easy food to its inhabitants and splendor – thanks to the consistent
extraction of the superfluous – to its lords).
46 Ibid., p. 449. On the economy of Sicily, see O. Cancila, L’economia della Sicilia. Aspetti storici
(Milano: 1992).
47 Ibid.
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 111

which gravitates around the sea – the access to the great international traffic
with which the island is involved48 – and from the sea reaches the hinterland
through a road network based on the solid Roman system “scoperta dallo sciame
di piccoli e medi mercanti forestieri che dagli approdi costieri di minuto cabo-
taggio si spingono fino alla ‘masseria’49. Even when, in the Bourbon 18th century,
this road network, which was mainly made up of natural tracks influenced by
orography and hydrography, will be improved through the construction of car-
riageable roads, the main economic goal of the new road system will be always
the same: to make the fast connection from the hinterland to the coast, to the
sea – the access door to international commerce50 – possible.
As for the settlements and the population, for a long time researchers have
highlighted an urban dimension in the modes of settlement51, which also appears
in the cartographic representations. Sicily is represented as “terra di città” (land
of cities) where the urban phenomenon reveals complex territorial hierarchies
and balances, as can be seen in the lists included in the sources of the time. “La
Sicilia conta cittadelle e città in numero di centosettantatré… Tre sono insignite
di dignità arcivescovile: Palermo, Messina e Monreale; sei sono sede di vescovado
e di cattedrale: Catania, Siracusa, Agrigento, Mazara, Cefalù e Patti… Le citta-
delle sono molto numerose… Tra le città di Sicilia oggi si distinguono Palermo,
Messina e Catania ”52.
The “qualitative” distinction of the cities is the result of the “quantity” of
its inhabitants, a quantity which generates social complexity. If in the second
half of the 15th century the island has less than 500,000 inhabitants53, with its
capital Palermo having just 25,000 inhabitants, beginning from the 16th cen-
tury the Sicilian population would increase by between 50% and 75%, exceed-
ing the number of a million inhabitants in the mid-16th century, with Palermo
surpassing 100,000 inhabitants and Messina having 75,000 inhabitants. The
17th century – as Aymard has noted – reveals unique characteristics for Sicily.
48 E. Iachello, “La geografia politico-amministrativa della Sicilia nella prima metà del XIX secolo”,
in Giarrizzo and Iachello, eds., Le mappe della storia, p. 73.
49 Giarrizzo, La Sicilia dal Cinquecento all’Unità d’Italia, p. 100. (which was discovered by the
swarms of small and medium foreign traders who reach the manor farm from the coastal land-
ing places of small trading boats)
50 P. Militello, “L’assetto viario della Sicilia nella prima metà dell’Ottocento”, in G. Giarrizzo and
E. Iachello, Le mappe della storia, pp. 85–90.
51 See, above all, M. Aymard and G. Giarrizzo, eds., Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi.
La Sicilia (Torino: 1987).
52 Fazello, De Rebus Siculis, book I, ch. I, p. 20. (In Sicily there are a hundred and seventy-three
citadels and cities… Three of them, Palermo, Messina and Monreale, house archiepiscopal
seats; Catania, Syracuse, Agrigento, Mazara, Cefalù and Patti house episcopal seats and cathe-
drals… The citadels are numerous… Among the cities of Sicily, Palermo, Messina and Catania
can be counted today).
53 For the demographic data and the relevant analysis, cf. M. Aymard, Profili demografici, in Storia
della Sicilia (Napoli: 1978), VII, pp. 217–240; G. Longhitano, Studi di storia della popolazione
siciliana, I: Riveli, numerazioni, censimenti (1569–1861) (Catania: 1988); D. Ligresti, Dinam-
iche demografiche nella Sicilia moderna (1505–1806) (Milano: 2002).
112 TEMA

Between 1590 and 1624 an increase in the population occurred, followed by

a period of instability which continued till the mid-century. Another phase of
expansion added to this trend which lasted till about 1680 and was interrupted
by a phase of contraction. Thanks also to the phenomenon of the new founda-
tions, the island could count 119 inhabited areas between 1583 and 1714. After
the disastrous earthquake in 169354, a positive demographic trend was regis-
tered which would characterize the 18th century and the first decades of the
19th century. By the mid-18th century the Sicilian population increased by 20%,
thus exceeding 1.300.000 inhabitants, this being a figure which would grow till
almost reaching 2 million inhabitants in 1831. These figures further highlight
the urban phenomenon. In the mid-18th century Vito Amico would distinguish
two “sister” cities, Messina and Catania, besides Palermo, the capital of the king-
dom, but he would add numerous royal cities and villages as well as municipali-
ties, archbishoprics and bishoprics55.
The perception and the practice of the territory also poses the problem of
its administration. Up until the 19th century Sicily was administratively divided
into three areas which coincided with the geographically tripartite Sicily. The
division into three Valleys (Mazara, Demone and Noto), which goes back to the
Arab domination56, would remain almost unchanged for seven centuries, until
the first decades of the 19th century. Rather than being a real administrative par-
tition, it was gradually transformed into a lucky formula which made it possible
to compare the image of the three-pointed island to the administrative triparti-
tion. In the modern age, de facto, only two centres competed for the primacy:
Palermo and Messina, the latter being substituted by Catania, during the 18th-
19th centuries, in the “bipartition” of Sicily (a division which was actually only
partial since the territorial organization was far more complex). The tripartite
administrative geography – according to the limits just taken into considera-
tion – was strictly connected with the physical geography. The boundaries of the
Valleys were defined by the most important rivers of the island: the Imera, the
Salso, the Simeto. The division into “comarche” (fiscal institutions) and “sergen-
zie” (military institutions), on the other hand, would not appear in the carto-
graphic representations; besides these divisions, there were also the feudal and
the ecclesiastical jurisdictions (these latter being important also in cartography).

54 On earthquakes in Sicily, see. G. Giarrizzo, ed., La Sicilia dei terremoti. Lunga durata e dinami-
che sociali (Catania: 1996).
55 On the Sicilian cities, see also A. Coco, “La città siciliana (1680–1750)”, in Idem, Storia e sto-
riografia della Sicilia moderna (Catania: 2002).
56 Ibid, p. 23. On the administrative division of Sicily, cf. P. Corrao and V. D’Alessandro,
“Geografia amministrativa e potere sul territorio nella Sicilia tardomedievale (secoli XIII-
XIV)”, in G. Chittolini and D. Willoweit, eds., L’organizzazione del territorio in Italia e Germa-
nia: secoli XIII-XIV, Book 37 of the “Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico” (1994), pp.
395–444; Iachello, La geografia politico-amministrativa della Sicilia.
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 113

With the administrative reform of 181757, the political-administrative geog-

raphy of the Island was redesigned according to characteristics destined to last
for more than a century. It created, following the French model, seven intendan-
cies, thus politically ratifying the urban trait and the polycentric character of
the island. Besides Palermo and Catania (and, to a lesser extent, Messina), the
medium-sized centres of Trapani, Syracuse (but, after 1837, Noto), Girgenti and
Caltanissetta, the only city in the hinterland, have to be added, which highlights
the role of the sea towns as the discriminating criterion in the identification of
the most important centres of the urban framework of the island. The complex-
ity of such a framework was highlighted by the further division of the intend-
ancies into districts and neighbourhoods. Of the old administrative divisions
only the ecclesiastical ones remained, but their territorial organizations tended
to adapt to the administrative divisions over time.
Descriptions, partitions, economic and administrative divisions outline the
overlapping, in the definition of the island space, of different, often clashing,
ways of thinking and identities. A space which thus loses its geographic evi-
dence, its “obviousness” and “rigidity”, becomes fluid and is each time defined
by processes which the representations are not always able to catch. The geo-
graphical map then simplifies the complexity of the island, but through this
simplification it makes a selection which somehow refers to those processes. The
cartographic evidence, which is built upon the rhetoric of “making the observer
see” the represented spaces which they often ignore, can be then used to recon-
struct its ability to explain the spatial complexity on the one hand, to test its
operational force on the other hand.

The Island in the History of Cartography

Trinacria aut triquetra: Ancient and Medieval Sicily

If it is since the 6th century B.C. that the form of the triangle is attributed to
Sicily, it is at the end of the I century A.D. that the Greek historian and geogra-
pher Strabo approximately calculated the measure of its triangular form and its
geographical position, but he wrongly collocated the promontory of Pachinus as
the most easterly point of the island58.

57 On the administrative reform, cf. E. Iachello, “Centralisation étatique et pouvoir local en Sicile
au XIX siècle”, in Annales E.S.C. (1994), 1, pp. 241–266.
58 On the shape of the island in the history of cartography, cf. G. Di Vita, “Lo schema trian-
golare e la posizione geografica della Sicilia secondo i geografi e i cartografi antichi da Strabone
sino a Giacomo Gastaldo”, in Atti del V Congresso Geografico Italiano ( Napoli: 1904), vol. II,
pp. 751–761.
114 TEMA

The first cartographic representation of the Island is obtained from the work
of Ptolemy (II c. A.D.)59, whose merit was that he closely linked astronomy,
cartography and mathematical procedures together. On the basis of his cal-
culations, twenty-seven maps were made, which were probably designed, not
without a series of errors of representation, by the Greek Agathodaemon in the
III century A.D. and were redesigned – as we will see – at the beginning of
the modern age. Ptolemaic Sicily too (table 1), which is included in the Tab-
ula VII Europae, presents a very deformed variation of the triangular scheme.
Besides accentuating Strabo’s error, not only did Ptolemy continue to represent
cape Pachinus as the most easterly point, but he placed it farther north of cape
Lilibeus. By moving cape Pachinus towards the east, this deformation (which
was to be reproposed by humanist scholars of the Renaissance about a thousand
years later) highlighted – as it has been noted in the literary descriptions – the
relationships of the island with Greece and, by collocating cape Lilibeus – the
closest place to Africa – in the most southerly point, it gave an orientation which
exalted its position as a bridge between Italy and Africa to the northern cost.
From the Roman world, on the other hand, the so called Tabula Peutingeri-
ana60 (table II) has come to us. It was printed by the German humanist Konrad
Peutinger in 1598, but, in fact, it was a 12th or 13th century medieval copy of
a document of the 4th century AD. In it the deformed features of the lands of
the empire are represented in a long strip (6,75 metres long by 30–35 centime-
tres wide) on which the main routes, the stopping places, the distances between
them and a lot of names of rivers, mountains and places. In the Tabula the geo-
graphical form of Sicily is greatly deformed in order to fit inside the roll, thus
resulting in a stretched parallelogram inside which, besides various toponyms
relative to the orography and hydrography and a thermal bath, the civitates, the
mansiones (stages of the itinerary ) and the mutationes (places where the horses
were changed) can be identified. The coasts are conventionally represented by
a continuous wavy line, with the exception of the sickle of the port of Messina.
Ptolemaic Sicily and that of the Tabula Peutingeriana are the only docu-
ments of the Greek and Latin past from which it was possible to obtain a rep-
resentation of the island. The first, though, is the result of the elaboration of
a scientist, and, as such, it is different from the Tabula Peutingeriana, which was
produced for practical and celebratory reasons. The different context determines
the characteristics of the geographical representations.
About seven centuries later, from the relationship between the Western
and the Arab-Muslim cultures, a further representation of the island was born.
On behalf of Roger II, the Arab geographer Idrîsî, who was active at the court
of Palermo from 1138, made a description of the lands which surrounded the
59 On Tolomeo see O.A.W. Dilke, “The Culmination of Greek Cartography in Ptolemy”, in Har-
ley and Woodward, The History of Cartography, pp. 177–200.
60 Cf. Various Authors, Segni e sogni della terra, p. 36.
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 115

I. Tabula Europae VII, C. Tolomeo – M. Serveto, in Claudii Ptolomaei… geographicae

enarrationis… Ex Bilibaldi Pirckheymheri traslatione, Lugduni 1541, cm 26x43,5

II. Tabula Peutingeriana, ed. K. Miller 1887–1888, m 6,75x0,34. Sicily, segmentum

V–VI.
116 TEMA

III. Carte générale du globe tirée de la Géographie d’El Edrisi…, 1844. Italy and Sicily.

Mediterranean61. This work, a text of descriptive geography of all the countries,

was completed in 1154 when also a large planisphere engraved on silver, which
unfortunately was destroyed in 1160, was added. Idrîsî’s text has come to us
accompanied by 69 maps which correspond to the sections of the planisphere.
The Arab scientist, by comparing the notions of Ptolemaic and Arab geography
to the data provided by navigators and travellers and, probably, to new astro-
nomical calculations, was the first to represent Sicily with a triangular shape
which was not very different from its current form, also adding the localization
of a good 34 cities (table III). As Maurice Aymard writes: “Non è un caso che la
carta di Idrîsî sia anche la prima, e per lungo tempo la sola, ad essere stata realiz-
zata nella stessa Sicilia (e per di più concepita da un osservatore siciliano al quale
la volontà del committente aveva attribuito una posizione centrale)”62.

61 Idrîsî, “Sollazzo per chi si diletta di girare il mondo”, in M. Amari, Biblioteca arabo-sicula
(Catania: 1982; Turin and Rome 1880), vol. I, ch. VII. See also Idrîsî, La première géographie
de l’Occident, H. Bresc and A. Nef, eds. (Paris:1999).
62 M. Aymard, “Cartografia storica: istruzioni per l’uso”, in Iachello, L’isola a tre punte, pp. 11–12.
(It is not by chance that Idrîsî’s map is also the first, and for a long time the only one, to have
been made actually in Sicily (and, what is more, to have been conceived by a Sicilian observer
who enjoyed a central role thanks to the will of his employer).
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 117

Nova Tabula Siciliae: the island in the Renaissance

During the second half of the 13th century, thanks to the expansion of the trade
and the consequent increase in the areas of navigation, the first “portolani” (por-
tolanos; descriptions of the coasts) and the first nautical maps made by Genoese
and Catalan cartographers appeared63. Drawn on parchment sheets, they nor-
mally represented the whole Mediterranean basin, the Black Sea, the African and
European Atlantic shores, by pointing out briefly the details of the internal parts
and, on the contrary, by drawing very carefully the coastal outline with, perpen-
dicularly to it, the most important points of the coastline. Besides the possible
scrolls, the drawing was completed by the direction lines, or wind lines, which
were used by the sailors to find the route. Based on the direct observation of the
coastal outline, the maps “da navigare” (for navigation) appear surprisingly pre-
cise in comparison with the cartographic production of the day. In these maps,
though, the data with the latitude and the longitude are missing: it is not, then,
indicated (but we will come back to this point) the exact position of the places
on the Earth’s surface.
With the nautical cartography, the errors regarding the triangular scheme
and the geographical position of Sicily disappear almost completely. The island
is well drawn as for the coast lines, which are traced with a good approximation,
and it usually presents about thirty toponyms relative to the most significant
ports and promontories of the coastline. From the nautical maps it is also pos-
sible to understand the commercial and strategic importance of Sicily, which is
often represented in a central position among the Mediterranean routes, if not
as the one and only focus of the cartographic representation.
At the beginning of the 15 th century, besides the nautical cartography,
Ptolemy’s mathematical and astronomical cartography becomes dominant.
Being rediscovered by the Renaissance scholars64, his Geography was translated
from Greek into Latin by Jacopo Angelo in 1409 and, thanks also to the aid
of printing (which, however, was often a double-edged sword65), spread rap-
idly, thus becoming the geographical Bible of the Renaissance upon which the
“new geography”66 was to be built. The maps which were derived from Ptolemy
63 On the portolanos and the nautical maps, see C. Astengo, “La cartografia nautica mediterra-
nea”, in Milanesi, ed., L’Europa delle carte, pp. 21–25.
64 Cf. Broc, La geografia del Rinascimento.
65 “La stampa, alla quale si attribuisce un ruolo capitale nella diffusione delle nuove conoscenze
geografiche, è in realtà un’arma a doppio taglio, dato che in primo luogo è il veicolo di dif-
fusione della vecchia geografia” (Printing, to which a major role is given in spreading new
geographical knowledge, is, in fact, a double-edged sword, since it is, in the first place, a vehicle
of the spreading of the old geography) (Broc, La geografia del Rinascimento, p. 14). Cf., also,
L. Febvre and H.J. Martin, La nascita del libro (Bari: 1988); E.L. Eisenstein, Le rivoluzioni del
libro. L’invenzione della stampa e la nascita dell’età moderna (Bologna: 1995), p. 200; D. Wood-
ward, Cartografia a stampa nell’Italia del Rinascimento (Milano: 2002).
66 “L’enorme diffusione di Tolomeo negli ambienti colti non deve far trascurare gli altri maestri
dell’antichità. Se questi fornisce la chiave di lettura astronomica della terra, Strabone - ignorato
118 TEMA

presented a much less precise and updated design compared with the nautical
maps, but they had the merit of being more “scientific”: by providing the lon-
gitude and latitude coordinates of all points of the earth (thus helping to deter-
mine an “exact” point which, through the observation of the sky, was always pos-
sible to find again), they constituted a more scientifically precise basis compared
with the nautical geography and were, then, soon adopted by the scholars.
Thus, Humanism discovered geography by reading the ancients and the
great results of the “golden age” of cartography are based on the assimilation
and the overcoming of the Alexandrinian heritage. “Come Copernico partì da
dove era arrivato l’Almagesto, così anche Ortelio e Mercatore trovarono nell’an-
tica Geographia un punto di partenza per il loro lavoro a metà Cinquecento”67.
Therefore a close relationship between the old geography and the modern geog-
raphy, which was destined to last forever, developed.
However, the Renaissance cartographers, being aware that the Ptolemaic
maps were less precise and updated, tried to correct their design on the basis of
the new experiences. “Nonostante i suoi punti deboli, e anzi spesso a causa di
questi, la Geographia di Tolomeo divenne, sia per gli uomini di scienza che per
quelli d’azione, più uno stimolo che un handicap”68. This is one of the excit-
ing aspects of Renaissance cartography: the progressive (but difficult) fusion
between the “nautical” style and the “learned” style. It would be inaccurate to
insist upon the mutual extraneousness of navigators and humanists: as Numa
Broc writes: “senza dubbio fin dal XIV secolo i portolani avevano corretto gli
errori di longitudine dei Greci, che le carte dotte invece perpetuano fino al XVI
secolo. Senza dubbio molti geografi eruditi non utilizzano, o non conoscono
i portolani… Tuttavia l’influenza delle carte marine è manifesta in parecchie
carte “moderne”69. Thus, over the 16th century, more and more often, “modern

da tutto il Medioevo ed ora riscoperto - ed Aristotele forniscono rispettivamente quella sto-

rica e quella fisica. La geografia, la cartografia entrano quindi a far parte dei molteplici aspetti
dell’erudizione dell’umanista del Quattrocento” (Despite the great popularity of Ptolemy
within the learned environments, the other masters of the past ages must not be forgotten.
If Ptolemy would provide the interpretive astronomical key of the earth, Strabo – who was
completely ignored in the Middle Ages and who has now been rediscovered – and Aristotle
would respectively provide its historical and physical interpretive keys. Geography and cartog-
raphy then, come into play in the manifold aspects of the erudition of the humanist scholar of
the 15th century) (Broc, La geografia del Rinascimento, p. 9).
67 Eisenstein, Le rivoluzioni del libro, p. 216. (As Copernicus started from where the Almagest had
arrived, so, in the mid-16th century, also Ortelius and Mercator found a starting point for their
work in the old Geographia).
68 Broc, La geografia del Rinascimento, p. 11. (Despite its weaknesses, and often even because
of them, Ptolemy’s Geography became, both for the men of science and those of action, more
a stimulus than a handicap).
69 Ibid., p. 50. (without doubt since the 14th century the portolani had corrected the longitude
errors of the Greeks, which the learned maps, on the other hand, perpetuated till the 16th cen-
tury. Without doubt many learned geographers did not use, or did not know the portolani…
Nonetheless the influence of the nautical maps is evident in many “modern” Ptolemy maps…
On their part, the more cultivated sailors did not disdain Ptolemaic teachings).
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 119

maps”, Tabulae novae with a representation of the territories which was updated
on the basis of the latest measurements, were added to the “old series” of Ptole-
maic maps. The separation between the cartography of the scholars and the nau-
tical cartography would diminish: the nautical maps becoming the terrain for
experimenting with new methods of representation for the maths geographers.
In the mid-16th century the agreement between scholars and sailors was more
or less established: geography and maths were reconciled70 although – as Luc-
ien Febvre noted – academic geographers and cosmographers still trailed behind
those de plein vent71.
The success of Ptolemy’s work can be explained also through the new role
of the cartographer-geographer, who was asked to provide representations that
would satisfy the needs of the new employers. Maps have not only to guide the
sailor: starting from the 15th century they also have to record discoveries and
conquests72.
Going back to Ptolemy met the needs created by the conquest of new
worlds. In this period maps would acquire a great value, since they were a means
for the “registration” of the new lands: they supported the territorial claims of
the sovereigns. There was the need to determine exactly the position of the new
territories: the issue of the “point” (to position and find again any particular
place on the earth) would become the heart of the cartographic problem.
The great discoveries are not, however, the only reasons for the evolution of
Renaissance geography. To those new needs have to be added: the needs of the
sovereigns, to whom the modern administration would impose a more precise
knowledge of their own territories (and, from the 16th century, the development
of geography is strictly connected with that of the modern State73); the needs of
the armies and navies, for which the nautical maps, the maps of the fortifications
and the dismantling of battle camps would become more and more essential for
the achievement of strategic goals; the needs of the landowners, at the end of
the feudal regime being only interested in fixing the boundaries and extensions
of their land possessions74, as a consequence of the new relationships with the
land; the needs of the ecclesiastical geopolitics, which would acquire new dimen-
sions with the Council of Trent and with the development of the order of the
Jesuits and would consider the maps as one of the more effective instruments
in the apostolic practice and the religious conquest of the world75. Thus, not
only astronomers and sailors but also land surveyors, artillerymen, engineers,
landowners, merchants and clergymen designed those maps which other people

70 L. Gallois, Les géographes allemands de la Renaissance (Parigi: 1890), pp. 237–238.

71 L. Febvre, Le problème de l’incroyance au XVIe siècle (Parigi: 1968), p. 404.
72 Broc, La geografia del Rinascimento, p. 36.
73 Quaini, L’Italia dei cartografi, p. 14.
74 Claval, Histoire de la géographie, p. 25.
75 Broc, La geografia del Rinascimento, p. 182.
120 TEMA

would use and further improve for trade, wars and explorations76. As Quaini
writes: “Ancora una volta toccò al dinamismo delle forze sociali ed economiche
aprire la strada alle grandiose innovazioni che sconvolsero la geografia medie-
vale… Sono i prìncipi, i condottieri e i mercanti a domandare nuove rappresen-
tazioni cartografiche dei più vasti spazi che si accingono a dominare”77.
This development in cartographic science is not, however, a continuous
progress, but a process characterized by stagnation and phases of withdrawal78,
with delays often due to the most various reasons (from secrecy – which has
always surrounded maps – to the difficulties of documentation and habits).
A development which sees some maps light up an entire age like beacons and,
around them, proliferate numerous other derived maps made by copyists and
later imitators79.
Within this process – as it has been said – two main components emerge:
erudition and experience. On the one hand academic geography, the heritage
of Humanism, on the other hand geography learned from experience which
“incarna e riassume l’azione combinata di forze e pressioni diverse”80. Also Sicily
represents an example of this progressive fusion. The deformed Ptolemaic vari-
ant of the island would be regularly reproposed till the end of the 16th century
and its influence would be felt till the mid-18th century, when the cartogra-
phers would still reproduce the “torsion” of the island. Alongside this variant,
though, the attempts to correct it, which were destined to replace the Ptolemaic
representation, would be more and more numerous. It is the map published by
Benedetto Bordone in 1528 (table IV) which bears witness to the coexistence
of the “ancient” and “modern” variants, but, at the same time, emphasizes the
difficulty of the process of renovation. Here the “Sicily according to Ptolemy”
and the “Sicily according to the modern cartographers”, which are placed one
next to the other, highlight the comparison on the on hand, but emphasize the
indecision, which still dominated on the erudite side of Renaissance cartogra-
phy, between the “learned” representation of the astronomers and the empirical
representation of the navigators on the other.
However, the difference between the two representations does not relate
only to the different geographical positions, but to significant elements of its
characterization. If both of them highlight, with strong emphasis, the volcano,
the “modern” one leaves out the representation of some physical elements to the
advantage of the cities. The coasts are more precisely drawn and on them the
76 M. Milanesi, ed., “Introduction” to L’Europa delle carte, p. 7.
77 Quaini, L’Italia dei cartografi, p. 13. (Once again it was the task of the dynamism of social
and economic forces to pave the way for the great innovations which deeply changed medieval
geography… the princes, the war leaders and the merchants being the ones who requested new
cartographic representations of those wider areas they would soon control).
78 De Dainville, La géographie des humanistes, p. 498.
79 Broc, La geografia del Rinascimento, p. 33.
80 de Dainville, La géographie des humanistes, p. 498. (embodies and sums up the combined action
of different forces and pressures)
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 121

IV. Sicilia secondo Tolemeo Sicilia secondo moderni, in Libro di Benedetto Bordone nel qual
si ragiona di tutte l’isole del mondo…, Venezia 1528, cm 30,5x42

most important centres are given more prominence. Sea towns, thus, become
the strong element of the representation of Sicily. The presence of the island of
Malta, which is a place of intense trade, as well as that of a part of the Calabrian
coast, place the island in its not only a geographical but also an economic con-
text. The evolution is not only “technical” but it is also strictly connected with
the context in which maps are produced.
The synthesis between the nautical tradition of the Mediterranean geogra-
phers and the learned tradition of the Northern geographers will take place with
Mercator and Ortelius81; in their work the accuracy of the routes will combine
with the precision of the geometrical construction. As for Sicily, however, both
Mercator and Ortelius will limit themselves to reproducing the outlines of the
island drawn by Giacomo Gastaldi82 (table V), enriching it with certain new
elements.
It is, indeed, this latter who made the first printed map of Sicily where the
fusion between empirical geography and learned geography occurs. By using the
nautical maps and the information gathered from local scholars, the Piedmon-
tese Gastaldi printed numerous maps of various European regions between 1539
and 1566, although his own actual field would remain the detailed cartography
of some Italian regions. In 1545 a representation which is considered a milestone
in Sicilian cartography would actually begin with Sicily – this giving evidence of
the 16th century interest in the island.

81 For all the authors of maps of Sicily in the modern age who have been quoted in the text, we
would like to refer to P. Militello, “Schede e bibliografia di riferimento”, in Iachello, ed., L’isola
a tre punte, pp. 175–190.
82 On Giacomo Gastaldi, see the relevant entry edited by D. Busolini in Dizionario Biografico
degli Italiani, vol. 52 (Roma: 1999), pp. 529–532.
122 TEMA

V. Descrittione della Sicilia con le sue isole... per Giacomo Gastaldo Piemontese
Cosmographo in Venetia 1545, cm 38,3x55,2

As it has been said before, the (historical, literary and geographical) descrip-
tions provided by, above all, the local scholars represented the first element of
complicity between the maps and their users and they were often at the basis
of the geographical map. In the example of Gastaldi’s Sicily there is an evident
connection with a very rare booklet entitled La descrittione dell’isola di Sicilia
(The description of the island of Sicily) which was printed in Venice in 1546
by an anonymous Sicilian author83 who can almost certainly be identified as
the Messinese Francesco Maurolico84 (by some even said to be the author of the
map85) with whom Gastaldi had indirect contacts thanks to his friendship with

83 “Fatta per un gentilhuomo siciliano, qual per modestia non vol esser nominato”(Made by
a Sicilian gentleman, who, out of modesty, does not want to be mentioned/named) (La descrit-
tione dell’isola di Sicilia (Venezia: 1546), Alli lettori, pages not numbered, but part 1 v).
84 On Maurolico, see C. Dollo, “Francesco Maurolico e le matematiche nell’isola”, in Idem, Mod-
elli scientifici e filosofici nella Sicilia spagnola (Napoli: 1984), pp. 9–38; R. Moscheo, Francesco
Maurolico tra rinascimento e scienza galileiana: materiali e ricerche (Messina: 1988).
85 According to Placido Samperi Maurolico “compose… il disegno di tutta l’isola di Sicilia,
ad istanza di Giacomo Castaldo Piemontese Cosmografo, che si stampò più volte in Roma”
(made… the drawing of all the island, which was printed many times in Rome, on behalf of
the Piedmontese cosmographer Giacomo Castaldo) (P. Samperi, Iconologia della gloriosa Vergine
madre di Dio Maria protettrice di Messina (Messina: 1644), book I, part 35).
Paolo Militello • Cartography of Sicily in the early modern age 123

Bembo, Fracastoro and Ramusio86. In the title of the map Gastaldi declares the
connection with that booklet: “Descrizione della Sicilia con le sue isole delle
qual li nomi Antichi et Moderni et altre cose notabili per un libretto sono breve-
mente decchiarati”87. And the two works do not lack analogies. If Gastaldi’s map
takes the nautical maps as a model, by chiefly giving full details of the drawing
and the places on the coast, in the booklet, too, the “camini” (routes) of the
island are traced only along the coasts starting from Messina. The book and the
map refer to each other, thus establishing a complementary relationship. In the
description – the author warns – “se lettor humanissimo troverai molti nomi di
luoghi, et fiumi, che non sono descritti nella charta, non ti maravigliare, percio-
che non è stato possibile di descriver così il tutto minutamente: ma sia contento
di haver al presente la più giusta et più copiosa, che per il tempo passato mai si
habbi havuta né letta”88. If the map does not make the representation of “every-
thing in a detailed way” possible, the text helps then to complete it. In keeping
with the Renaissance cultural interests, one of the elements of cross-reference
between the map and the booklet is indicated in the list, at the end of the book-
let, of the ancient and modern names of Sicily89. “Et è da sperare, che qualche
gentil spirito nel advenire la correggerà, et vi aggiongerà da nuovo molte altre
cose: adoperandola nel leggere gli historici greci et latini, et vedendo il grandis-
simo frutto e piacere chel ne riceve nel intendere particolarmente quelli”90. But
the relationship between the book and the map does not end with these instruc-
tions, it is indicated as a desirable project for a European geography. “Et se
mosso dal utile di questo così piccolo livretto et carta si disponesse di volere
far il simile sopra cadauna provintia de Europa (perciò che dell’Asia et Africa
è cosa impossibile) non si desidereria più alcun libro de geographia: et si potrian

86 See S. Grande, “Le relazioni geografiche fra P. Bembo, G. Fracastoro, G.B. Ramusio,
G. Gastaldi”, taken from Memorie della Società Geografica Italiana, vol. XII (1905), p. 109,
and G. Sgrilli, “Nuovi studi su Giacomo Gastaldi e sulla Geografia in Italia nel secolo XVI”, in
Rivista Geografica Italiana, year XIV (1907), vol. XIV, pp. 160–171.
87 A comparison aiming to show the coincidence between the Descrittione and a part of the first
book of the Sicaniarum Rerum Compendium by Maurolico (Messina: 1562) in F. De Stefano,
“Intorno alla carta gastaldina della Sicilia (1545)”, in Rivista Geografica Italiana, year XXVII
(1920), pp. 196–199. (Description of Sicily with its islands whose ancient and modern names
and other remarkable things for a booklet are briefly stated).
88 La descrittione dell’isola di Sicilia, part 1v. (if you, very humane reader, find many names of
places, and rivers, which are not described in the map, do not be surprised, because it was not
possible to describe everything in a detailed way: but be content to have at present the most
right and richest map that there was or was ever read in the past).
89 Ibid., [parts 17v-20r].
90 Ibid, [part 1v]. (And it is to be hoped that some gentle soul will correct it in the future and will
add many other things: by using it to read the Greek and Latin historians, and thus noticing
the very important results and the pleasure which they get from especially understanding those
historians).
124 TEMA

chiamar queste tal carte ò tavole un perfetto ptholomeo di tempi nostri”91. The
book and the map are thus bound in one, ambitious project.
Gastaldi’s map, which was made and printed in Venice, gives the opportunity
for a further observation. From the point of view of its production and spread, it
would bear witness, as well as all the geographical maps of the island which were
produced and printed in the new centres of the book industry (Venice, Lyon,
Basel, Antwerp, Cologne, Amsterdam, Paris and London) in the 16th and 17th
centuries, to the “passive” role of Sicily within the “chain of information”. But
behind Gastaldi’s map – as we have seen – there is a booklet by a Sicilian author.
This highlights the contribution that the inhabitants of the island would give to
the knowledge of the territory92. Often, indeed, the local scholars or the Sicilian
élites would provide the majority of the information which was necessary for the
production of new maps, through descriptions, histories, but also cartographic
representations, thus giving a considerable contribution to the process of the
construction of the image of the island.

91 Ibid. (And if, driven by the benefit of this booklet and map, they did the same thing with each
European province (this being impossible with Asia and Africa) there will be no need of geog-
raphy books: and these maps or tables could be called a perfect Ptolemy of our times).
92 Cf. Aymard, Cartografia storica: istruzioni per l’uso, pp. 12–13.