Monti e acque tra passato e presente: il linguaggio cartografico come “epifenomeno” delle concezioni e percezioni del territorio attraverso alcune carte d’archivio

Mountains and water are fundamental elements for the maps in every time, despite the changes of the symbolic forms and of the design cartographic techniques. Different styles are not caused only by evolution of cartographic science, but also by improvement of the “vocabularies” and “grammars” (citing A. Vallega) of cartography. With them the Geography, through the world’s description and his interpretation, has contributed to build and communicate her several possible scenarios, expressing their different meanings from many points of view, from ideological to meta-geographic. The correlation between different wayes of expression and mapping techniques, with a corresponding view of territorial reality, shows the impressive and communicative power of the symbol and produces and reinforces in the viewer a certain perception of the value of a territory and of its constituent elements. In this regard, drawings of orography and hydrography in the maps are very important, because they are linked not only to the “way of life” of the territory but to the mythical and cultural heritage of its communities. Hence the idea of examining, in diachronic-comparative way, two maps of the past three centuries depicting important mountains and rivers of the province of Salerno. Their importance is even more evident considering the relationship between man and environment content and, conversely, the indifference towards the nature that we can find in the today’s logic of economic development, how we can see in all dramatic episodes of hydrogeological instability