The realization of the present volume was dictated by the universally recognized importance that Olinto Marinelli’s Atlas of Geographical Types has assumed in more than eighty years in the national panorama of geographical disciplines: the Marinellian work has emerged as the fundamental and irreplaceable tool for the training of the generations of Italian geographers who, since 1922, the year of its publication, have taken turns on the academic and professional scene. The Atlas was for decades the most effective support in Italy for the teaching of geography: in its plates the main physical features of our country were masterfully illustrated, as well as some anthropic and economic aspects. Its relevance on a scientific and educational level was at the basis of the re-edition that the Italian Military Geographic Institute brought to completion in 1948, entrusting its scientific direction to the three eminent geographers Roberto Almagiì, Aldo Sestini and Livio Trevisan who, while on the one hand inserted new thematic tables and employed new information supports, then made available by the advent of aerophotogrammetry, on the other hand still preserved the original methodological settings of the work. The vacuum generated by the rapid exhaustion of the second edition of the Atlas, repeatedly signaled by the national geographic community, was echoed by a choral request for the work’s reissue on several occasions and in particular during the proceedings of the conference that, on the theme “Validity and actuality of Olinto Marinelli’s Atlas of Geographical Types,” was held in Catania in May 1987.
In the following 1990s special feasibility studies for the publication of a new Atlas confirmed the need and urgency of giving to the prints an updated, enlarged and more manageable edition of the monumental marinellian work. In 2002, the resolution of the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze to provide the necessary financial contribution for the realization of the work turned out to be decisive; the related executive project, promoted by the Italian Military Geographic Institute and the Ente, included, among other things, and in the first place, the reprinting of the Atlas of Geographical Types (1922 edition), which, promptly set up by the Institute, was presented on the occasion of the ceremony celebrating the 130th anniversary of its foundation. At the same time, this Scientific Committee was formed, which assumed the task of drawing the outlines of a work so relevant to the national geographic field and of taking care of its preparation, seeing to it that its maximum scientific rigor was ensured and availing itself of the specialized skills of its members as area managers. Although the function of a Scientific Committee is generally final, that is, to ensure the scientific rigor of the finished product, the role of this committee began long before the work of drafting the Atlas plates began, when it took on a laborious and fervent gestation, a painful and creative planning, and a meticulous work of orientation and organization, in order to involve all academic forces and to facilitate contacts and synergies with the coordinators and referents of the individual sheets.
The verification of the final products was therefore the last act, demanding on the scientific level, of a much longer work conducted in the previous years through animated meetings, held mostly in Florence at the headquarters of the Italian Military Geographic Institute, in order to establish themes, make decisions, guarantee thematic innovations, ensure the work modernity and scientific incidence in the Italian cultural panorama and, as far as the method is concerned, also in the international one, so that the new Italy, its new regional problems, the new way of reading its territory may be known everywhere, and so that the contribution, always renewed and current, of the geographer may be appreciated, who continues to find in cartography a powerful and indispensable support of study and planning, aimed at the preservation and enhancement of the resources and of our variegated and extraordinary landscape heritage. This, in brief, was the process that preceded the start of work on the creation of this volume, the main purpose of which is to update the original work in the light of disciplinary evolution, the transformations of the territory and the new methodologies of analysis and representation of geographic space, in order to provide a cognitive tool for those who work for the analysis and government of the territory and to offer teachers and scholars a text of certain reference in teaching and scientific research. The work presents a structure divided into three distinct parts: the first propaedeutic, dedicated to the main tools used for geographical analysis; the second thematic, consisting of the illustrative tables of the geographical types considered; and the third, including indexes and lists, aimed at easy reference of the text. Within the propaedeutic part, three themes are developed to provide the reader with an adequate introductory overview and the tools for in-depth and detailed consultation. With the essays pertaining to the theme “cartographic documents,” useful information is provided on the different cartographic tools in the Atlas tables, as well as some reflections on the constituting “geographic databases,” geographic information systems and the representative limits of the cartographic document. The theme “toponomastic regulations,” which is intended to be a useful supplement to the five plates that, in the second part, are devoted to the subject, presents a general overview of the toponomastic standardization activity initiated at the international level by the United Nations Organization, of the standards applied by the Italian Military Geographic Institute in cartographic layouts at the various scales, and of the national toponomastic legislation on the subject. The topic “elements of climatology” provides the reader with a concise overview of the main climatic agents, which condition or influence the physical and man-made environment and related geographic types. The second part consists of the tables of geographic types, divided into twenty themes. The first seven deal with physical geography in its many typological manifestations: from “slope shaping” to different morphological phenomenologies (fluvial, coastal, glacial, periglacial, structural and volcanic) and karst. This is followed by the three themes, devoted to “land reclamation,” “soil, vegetation and parks,” and “agriculture and animal husbandry”: their treatment is concerned with geographical types, in which the physical reality of the territory has been shaped or significantly shaped by “man’s activity, modifying the earth’s surface.” The remaining ten themes review the vast field of exquisitely “human” geographical studies, to which previous editions of the atlas had not allocated adequate space: five themes develop the treatment of settlements (rural settlements, population centers, settlements in dependence on environmental conditions, settlements of industrial and tertiary activities) and one focuses on “urbanization dynamics”; two other themes then deal with issues pertaining to “communication routes and networks” and the illustration of the natural and anthropic aspects of types inherent in the landscape and cultural heritage; “types of territorial discontinuity” and “toponymy” close the set of thematic tables in the atlas. Concluding the work is the third part, consisting of the usual apparatus of indexes and lists of illustrations and all those who contributed to the production of the Atlas. To the realization of the Atlas have lent their scientific contribution scholars of clear reputation, as coordinators and scientific referees, professors of Italian universities and specialists, working within the relevant national institutions: each scientific contribution is the work of a single author, who, however, had the faculty to make use of possible collaborations of other experts.
A consideration is in order regarding the requirements of formal homogeneity and methodological uniformity of the Atlas. While these requirements are of fundamental importance in the setting up of a work, the realization of which has seen the participation of numerous authors, they are also ill-suited to the need to ensure completeness and specialized rigor in the individual contributions. A difficulty of intent of which Olinto Marinelli himself was well aware, who wrote: “Certainly it is “that, if the compilation and illustration of each panel had been entrusted to a specialist in the study of the object represented, a certain perfection could have been obtained in the individual fragments of which the work is composed; but, regardless of the practical possibility of the thing, the work would have lost any homogeneity now instead, the many and inevitable gaps and imperfections, which may lend themselves to criticism, are undoubtedly compensated for by the greater unity of conception and execution. This was Olinto Marinelli’s choice back in 1922. Today, on the other hand, in the light of significant disciplinary advances and the increasing complexity of geographical phenomena, the treatment must necessarily privilege the specialized skills pertaining to the many and varied themes: a multiformity of approach that has been not only accepted but also valued, because it constitutes the indispensable basis for guaranteeing the completeness of the treatment and the specialized rigor of the individual disciplinary fields. The authors, albeit in agreement with the Committee, proceeded to elaborate tables and essays according to the methodological approaches considered most effective, with an editorial flexibility, which allowed them to select, in addition, illustrative exemplifications: exemplifications that do not constitute a review of all the concrete and visible manifestations of a given geographical type, but are intended to be an eloquent selection on the expository and didactic level. In this view, which may call to mind the Horatian rerum concordia discors, the rigid application of a priori established editorial schemes and parameters is transcended by virtue of the more comprehensive and thorough treatment. For the cartographic exemplification of “types” the topographical scale is privileged, while recourse to extreme scales is contemplated only for special cases. And it is through the reading of the topographic map that certain phenomena can be understood, just as Marinelli himself had occasion to express, stating that “the way of Geography” that traced by the great masters, that of the comparison of forms, made possible to a large extent only by large-scale maps, that also of the study of the topographic traces of man, that is, of the imprints left on the ground by man himself in his many activities: traces that maps also record and allow us to study in form, location and association with the various geographical elements. Any limitations in the representability of certain geographical types, which cannot be detected by institutional cartographic documentation, have been overcome through the elaboration of thematic maps, diagrams, cartograms, graphs and drawings of various types, as well as by the use of satellite and photographic images, both aerial and terrestrial, in order to present a complete description of these types.
Italy. Atlas of geographic(al) types,
while following in the footsteps of Olinto Marinelli, is a new work in content, methodological approaches and editorial layout; and its realization is a concrete testimony to the commitment with which the Italian Military Geographic Institute fulfills its task as the official cartographic organ of the State: the Institute with this work has ensured, to the scientific community and to those working in the sphere of geographical sciences, a reference base to cope with the multiple needs connected with the management of resources, their economic planning and environmental protection, in a gloomy scenario in which, with increasing frequency, calamitous events and hydrogeological disruptions of both natural and anthropogenic origin occur and follow one another. Like the original work, this volume does not aim to replace specialized scientific manuals, but constitutes the indispensable study equipment, which should be available to anyone working in these disciplines. It is a volume, among other things, characterized by overt didactic connotations, for the benefit of those who perform teaching functions in universities and schools, as well as those who engage in specialized and professional activities within public institutions and national research bodies. Italy. Atlas of geographical types.
It is a work that is fully immersed in today’s reality and interpenetrates, powerfully and profoundly, into the impetuous becoming of our times: the more than eighty years that have elapsed since the first edition have overwhelmingly changed the general scenario in which the geographer acts. In addition to the territory, the methods of knowledge, elaboration and analysis have also undergone radical metamorphoses, produced by disciplinary and technological achievements; the doctrinal bases themselves have been irreversibly disrupted, undermining principles and operational processes that were considered definitively established. The work is therefore framed far from being a mere repetition or update of the first and second editions of the Atlas. In the hope of having corresponded to the expectations of those working in the field, the Committee dedicates the work done to Olinto Marinelli: to his distinguished figure of man and scholar go a heartfelt thought, mindful and grateful for the work of ingenuity, with which he, pioneer and master, opened new horizons in the panorama of geographical disciplines.
The realization of the present volume was dictated by the universally recognized importance that Olinto Marinelli’s Atlas of Geographical Types has assumed in more than eighty years in the national panorama of geographic disciplines: Marinelli’s work has imposed itself as the fundamental and irreplaceable tool for the training of generations of Italian geographers who, since 1922, the year of its publication, have alternated on the academic and professional scene. The Atlas was for decades the most effective support in Italy for the teaching of geography: in its plates the main physical features of our country were masterfully illustrated, as well as some anthropic and economic aspects. Its relevance on a scientific and educational level was the basis of the re-edition that the Italian Military Geographic Institute brought to completion in 1948, entrusting its scientific direction to the three eminent geographers Roberto Almagiì, Aldo Sestini and Livio Trevisan who, if on the one hand inserted new thematic tables and employed new information supports, then made available by the advent of aerophotogrammetry, on the other hand still preserved the original methodological settings of the work. The vacuum generated by the rapid exhaustion of the second edition of the Atlas, repeatedly signaled by the national geographic community, was echoed by a choral request for the work’s reissue on several occasions and in particular during the proceedings of the conference that, on the theme “Validity and actuality of Olinto Marinelli’s Atlas of Geographical Types,” was held in Catania in May 1987. In the following 1990s special feasibility studies for the publication of a new Atlas confirmed the need and urgency to give to the presses an updated, expanded and more manageable edition of Marinelli’s monumental work. In 2002, the resolution of the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze to provide the necessary financial contribution for the realization of the work turned out to be decisive; the related executive project, promoted by the Italian Military Geographic Institute and the Ente, included, among other things, and in the first place, the reprinting of the Atlas of Geographical Types (1922 edition), which, promptly set up by the Institute, was presented on the occasion of the ceremony celebrating the 130th anniversary of its foundation. At the same time, this Scientific Committee was formed, which assumed the task of drawing the outlines of a work so relevant to the national geographic field and of taking care of its preparation, seeing to it that the utmost scientific rigor was ensured and availing itself of the specialized skills of its members as area managers. Although the function of a Scientific Committee ‘ generally final, that is, to ensure the scientific rigor of the finished product, the role of this committee began long before the work of drafting the Atlas plates began, when it took on a laborious and fervent gestation, a painful and creative planning, and a meticulous work of orientation and organization, in order to involve all academic forces and to facilitate contacts and synergies with the coordinators and referents of the individual sheets. The verification of the final products was therefore the last act, demanding on the scientific level, of a much longer work conducted in the previous years through animated meetings, held mostly in Florence at the headquarters of the Italian Military Geographic Institute, in order to establish themes, make decisions, guarantee thematic innovations, ensure the work modernity and scientific incidence in the Italian cultural panorama and, as far as the method is concerned, also in the international one, so that everywhere the new Italy, its new regional problems, the new way of reading its territory may be known and so that the contribution, always renewed and current, of the geographer may be appreciated, who continues to find in cartography a powerful and indispensable support of study and planning, aimed at the preservation and enhancement of the resources and of our variegated and extraordinary landscape heritage. This, in brief, was the process that preceded the start of work on the creation of this volume, the main purpose of which is to update the original work in the light of disciplinary evolution, the transformations of the territory and the new methodologies of analysis and representation of geographic space, in order to provide a cognitive tool for those who work for the analysis and government of the territory and to offer teachers and scholars a text of certain reference in teaching and scientific research. The work presents a structure divided into three distinct parts: the first propaedeutic, dedicated to the main tools used for geographical analysis; the second thematic, consisting of the illustrative tables of the geographical types considered; and the third, including indexes and lists, aimed at easy reference of the text. Within the propaedeutic part, three themes are developed to provide the reader with an adequate introductory overview and the tools for in-depth and detailed consultation. With the essays pertaining to the theme “cartographic documents,” useful information is provided on the various cartographic tools in the Atlas tables, as well as some reflections on the constituted “geographic databases, ” geographic information systems and the representative limits of the cartographic document. The theme “toponomastic regulations,” which is intended to be a useful addition to the five plates that, in the second part, are devoted to the subject, presents a general overview of the toponomastic standardization activity initiated at the international level by the United Nations Organization, of the standards applied by the Italian Military Geographic Institute in cartographic layouts at the various scales, and of the national toponomastic legislation on the subject. The theme “elements of climatology ” gives the reader a concise overview of the main climatic agents, which condition or influence the physical and man-made environment and related geographical types. The second part consists of the tables of geographic types, divided into twenty themes. The first seven deal with physical geography in its many typological manifestations: from “slope shaping” to different morphological phenomenologies (fluvial, coastal, glacial, periglacial, structural and volcanic) and karst. This is followed by the three themes, devoted to “land reclamation,” “soil, vegetation and parks,” and “agriculture and animal husbandry”: their treatment has as its subject matter the geographical types, in which the physical reality of the territory has been shaped or significantly shaped by the “activity of man, modifying the earth’s surface.” The remaining ten themes review the vast field of exquisitely “human” geographical studies, to which previous editions of the atlas had not allocated adequate space: five themes develop the treatment of settlements (rural settlements, population centers, settlements in dependence on environmental conditions, settlements of industrial and tertiary activities) and one focuses on “urbanization dynamics”; two other themes then deal with issues pertaining to “communication routes and networks” and the illustration of the natural and anthropic aspects of types inherent in the landscape and cultural heritage; “types of territorial discontinuity” and “toponymy” close the set of thematic tables in the atlas. Concluding the work is the third part, consisting of the usual apparatus of indexes and lists of illustrations and all those who contributed to the production of the Atlas. To the realization of the Atlas have lent their scientific contribution scholars of clear reputation, as coordinators and scientific referees, professors of Italian universities and specialists, working within the relevant national institutions: each scientific contribution is the work of a single author, who, however, had the faculty to make use of possible collaborations of other experts.
A consideration is in order regarding the requirements of formal homogeneity and methodological uniformity of the Atlas. While these requirements are of fundamental importance in the setting up of a work, the realization of which has seen the participation of numerous authors, they are also ill-suited to the need to ensure completeness and specialized rigor in the individual contributions. A difficulty of intent of which Olinto Marinelli himself was well aware, who wrote: “Certainly it is “that, if the compilation and illustration of each panel had been entrusted to a specialist in the study of the object represented, a certain perfection could have been obtained in the individual fragments of which the work is composed; but, regardless of the practical possibility of the thing, the work would have lost any homogeneity; now, on the other hand, the many and inevitable gaps and imperfections, which may lend themselves to criticism, are undoubtedly compensated for by the greater unity of conception and execution. This was Olinto Marinelli’s choice back in 1922. Today, on the other hand, in the light of significant disciplinary advances and the increasing complexity of geographical phenomena, the treatment must necessarily privilege the specialized skills pertaining to the many and varied themes: a multiformity of approach that has been not only accepted but also valued, because it constitutes the indispensable basis for guaranteeing the completeness of the treatment and the specialized rigor of the individual disciplinary sectors. The authors, albeit in agreement with the Committee, proceeded to elaborate tables and essays according to the methodological approaches considered most effective, with an editorial flexibility, which allowed them to select, in addition, illustrative exemplifications: exemplifications that do not constitute a review of all the concrete and visible manifestations of a given geographical type, but are intended to be an eloquent selection on the expository and didactic level. In this view, which may call to mind the Horatian rerum concordia discors, the rigid application of a priori established editorial schemes and parameters is transcended by virtue of the more comprehensive and thorough treatment. For the cartographic exemplification of “types” the topographical scale is privileged, while recourse to extreme scales is contemplated only for special cases. And it is through the reading of the topographic map that certain phenomena can be understood, just as Marinelli himself had occasion to express, stating that “the way of Geography” that traced by the great masters, that of the comparison of forms, made possible to a large extent only by large-scale maps, that also of the study of man’s topographic traces, that is, of the imprints left on the ground by man himself in his many activities: traces that maps also record and allow us to study in form, location and association with the various geographical elements. Any limitations in the representability of certain geographic types, which cannot be detected by institutional cartographic documentation, have been overcome through the elaboration of thematic maps, diagrams, cartograms, graphs and drawings of various types, as well as by the use of satellite and photographic images, both aerial and terrestrial, in order to present a complete description of these types.
Italy. Atlas of geographic(al) types, while following in the footsteps of Olinto Marinelli, is a new work in content, methodological approaches and editorial layout; and its realization is a concrete testimony to the commitment with which the Italian Military Geographic Institute fulfills its task as the official cartographic organ of the State: the Institute with this work has ensured, to the scientific community and to those working in the sphere of geographical sciences, a reference base to cope with the multiple needs connected with the management of resources, their economic planning and environmental protection, in a gloomy scenario in which, with increasing frequency, calamitous events and hydrogeological disruptions of both natural and anthropogenic origin occur and follow one another. Like the original work, this volume does not pursue the purpose of replacing specialized scientific manuals, but constitutes the indispensable study equipment, which should be available to anyone working in these disciplines. it is a volume, among other things, characterized by obvious didactic connotations, for the benefit of those who carry out teaching functions in universities and schools, as well as those who work in specialized and professional activities within public institutions and national research bodies.
Italy. Atlas of geographical types. is a work that is fully immersed in today’s reality and penetrates, powerfully and profoundly, into the impetuous becoming of our days: the more than eighty years that have elapsed since the first edition have overwhelmingly changed the general scenario in which the geographer acts. In addition to the territory, the methods of knowledge, elaboration and analysis have also undergone radical metamorphoses, produced by disciplinary and technological achievements; the doctrinal bases themselves have been irreversibly disrupted, undermining principles and operational processes that were considered definitively established. The work is therefore framed far from being a mere repetition or update of the first and second editions of the Atlas. In the hope of having corresponded to the expectations of those working in the field, the Committee dedicates the work done to Olinto Marinelli: to his distinguished figure of man and scholar go a heartfelt thought, mindful and grateful for the work of ingenuity, with which he, pioneer and master, opened new horizons in the panorama of geographical disciplines.
The Scientific Committee
