The valley as natural region. Genealogy, transformations and uses of a geographic category in Tuscan (1750-1848). – This essay rebuilds genealogy and social diffusion of a special type of physical regionalization: the valley. Between the half of the 18th and the first decades of the 19th centuries, the valley in fact is considered by the naturalists, geographers and Tuscan learned as a natural structure ordering the physical and social phenomena. Following Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (1752), the valley itself is suitable as well for the explanation of the generative dynamics of the earthly surface as in order to identify a geographic principle making sense of spatial discontinuities in human and physical facts. The proliferation of the scientific works referring to valleys at the beginning of the 19th century, such as physical cartography (Bartolomeo Borghi, Giovanni de Baillou), statistics (Attilio Zuccagni Orlandini) and history (Emanuele Repetti), performs a more and more widespread penetration of this pattern throughout society. The agreement between social and natural facts through the valley is mobilized as well by reformers as by provincial elites at the time of the reformations of the administrative systems and territorial units, while consolidating the relevance of this representation of the territory.
La valle come regione naturale. Genealogia, trasformazione, usi di una categoria geografica in Toscana (1750-1848)
STOPANI, Antonio
2012-01-01
Abstract
The valley as natural region. Genealogy, transformations and uses of a geographic category in Tuscan (1750-1848). – This essay rebuilds genealogy and social diffusion of a special type of physical regionalization: the valley. Between the half of the 18th and the first decades of the 19th centuries, the valley in fact is considered by the naturalists, geographers and Tuscan learned as a natural structure ordering the physical and social phenomena. Following Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (1752), the valley itself is suitable as well for the explanation of the generative dynamics of the earthly surface as in order to identify a geographic principle making sense of spatial discontinuities in human and physical facts. The proliferation of the scientific works referring to valleys at the beginning of the 19th century, such as physical cartography (Bartolomeo Borghi, Giovanni de Baillou), statistics (Attilio Zuccagni Orlandini) and history (Emanuele Repetti), performs a more and more widespread penetration of this pattern throughout society. The agreement between social and natural facts through the valley is mobilized as well by reformers as by provincial elites at the time of the reformations of the administrative systems and territorial units, while consolidating the relevance of this representation of the territory.
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