Geografie Sentimentali
Sentimental Geographies
Exhibition of antique books and fine old historical printed maps, curated by Maria Teresa Rodríguez and Roberta Scorranese.
Palazzo Ciampoli, from June 24 to July 8 2018
The history of Sicily and of the Mediterranean area through its historical maps.
This is a story of men, islands, tales. It is a short novel about the Mediterranean, a story that winds through the historical maps of Sicily, preserved in the Collection of prints of the Regional Library of Messina. A story that goes from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, sometimes sepia coloured, sometimes colorful, more or less imbued with fantasy. There are maps made for sailors, with well in evidence references for the docking. And there are those that, for example, Vincenzo Maria Coronelli did for the scholars, who (in the late seventeenth century) no longer liked a faithful representation of the Earth, because they were used to assigning to each place a myth, a symbol, a cultural reference. There are real cities and ideal cities, as in the map of 1680, signed by the Flemish Frederick de Wit, which takes up a representation of the previous century: in a box at the top, appears the city of Messina with walls and arsenals, which did not exist at the time, but which mirrored the image they wanted to to transmit. And then there are the men, those who walked around the island to trace its shape and coordinates, like Filippo Cluverio, a German geographer who lived only 42 years but who left us a legacy of historical geography. It is the novel of Sicily and the Mediterranean in about thirty precious maps, each with a story and a voice.
Equipment and Technical Direction by Francesca Cannavò
Graphics by Tina Berenato
(source: taobuk.it)
