L'immagine storica del territorio: emergenze verticali e cartografia antica

The essay tries to demonstrate, with multiple examples, the importance of vertical elements (emergencies) in the territory to compose the geo-historical cartography. The position of a quantity of vertical monuments (towers, clock towers, tower gates and votive pylons) in the area analyzed by the collective work in Piedmont region is directly connected to the relevance of the area represented in the maps and their geographic accuracy. Anyway, the major number of old maps is singularly present in the same regional sections being also recognized as seismic areas, giving so, indirectly, many other information to the studies conducted by structural researchers and engineers. But vertical emergences are first of all relevant elements in the definition of a specific landscape, the human landscape represented by those extraordinary rich old maps. Great “monarchy” maps, small reliefs connected to floods or river control, medium size cadastral surveys are, so, different portraits of these extraordinary interesting lands, characterized by their vertical monuments.