Telling and Showing: The Cartographic Drawing

The title of the essay is inspired by the considerations formulated by Italo Calvino after the visit to the Cartes et Figures de la Terre exhibition at the Center Pompidou in Paris: according to his thought, at the base of the geographical map there is a narrative idea conceived in relation to a itinerary. At the origins of a cartographic drawing there is therefore both the desire to narrate the landscape by describing the spatiality of the elements, and the desire to explain it through the eyes of those who interpret it, discretizing the places in a linear image that develops along a path and according to a specific theme. Therefore, the map is selective and partial, it represents the connections of daily life without any claim to being exhaustive: like the ancient and beautiful example engraved on the rock of Bedolina, in Val Camonica. For this reason, the landscape is a system of relationships which, as Vittorio Ugo argues, have the value of a response, of relationship/connection, of legitimizing each fact towards another. An intrinsic condition of this system is mutation: a precise space-time context, in fact, can vary its physical structure, alter itself due to environmental conditions and produce a perception that changes over time. Through a repertoire of cases of studies, it will be shown how the elaboration of 2D and 3D models and the resulting maps pursue the construction of a territory „in depth‟ understood as a set of iconic and symbolic signs that can potentially generate additional thematic maps. The past „layers‟, current and in progress, narrate the „mark‟ that time and civilization leave on the natural territory, transforming it into a cultural landscape.