Mapping the world
The capability to internalize a representation of the outside world (mental map) and to express it in a symbolic form (plain map) is one of the most fascinating areas of research, debated by a wide range of disciplines (from topological and spatial-geographical subjects to cognitive psychology or paleopsychology); this capacity can vary on the basis of gender, culture, development of the single individual and evolutionary course of the whole human species.
Mapping the world is closely linked to the structure of the human brain, which is able to work out spatial schematisms depending on the context and to use symbols and metaphors. Beyond the diverse formal structuring that a map can assume, we can equally connote as “maps” representations not only far in space and time but also different for purposes, contents and form: for example, the paintings of the Lascaux cave dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic, the “bird’s eye” 16th-century map of the Euganean Hills drawn by Dal Cortivo, or a georeferenced and high-resolution satellite image. At any rate, we are talking about “virtual environments” (cognitive and/or physical and/or digital) – generally simplified by means of a thematic and symbolic reduction – which can facilitate a sort of discovery or reconnaissance “exploration” of a certain territory.
A “bird’s eye” journey on the wings of the new virtual technologies, going across the temporal sequence of images of the Euganean territory (from the oldest maps to the historic aerial photo and the latest satellite views), gives us thence the extraordinary opportunity to visit, at different levels, landscapes of a potentially high cognitive value and a large cognitive-emotional impact.
The maps of Montegrotto
The images presented in this section, all digital reproductions from original maps, have been chosen and selected from among the known material and the data provided by local preservation authorities: the purpose is to represent in an exhaustive and comprehensive way the territory of Montegrotto and its historic thermal sources. These images represent portions of the area in specific historical moments, and therefore enable us to seize the transformations – either natural or produced by men – that occurred in the course of time.
The maps that we are taking into account, from the most ancient to the most recent ones, were all drawn for practical purposes; as a matter of fact, each map – the minor ones as well as the major and most detailed ones – conveys the practical (administrative, financial, political, military) purposes for which it is drawn by means of the personal interpretation of the author and the commissioning authority; moreover, these drawings often emphasize such a command of the representation technique and a carefulness in the rendering of the details that they can be considered real works of art, often beyond the intention of their author.
