Giovanni Modaffari

A poetics of the Amusement Park. Images, Discourses, and Values in the Industrialization of Italy after World War II. The Case of Sarroch (Gulf of Cagliari) This contribution considers a nucleus of visual materials relating to the Saras Refinery in Sarroch (Gulf of Cagliari) using an eco-critical approach and highlighting those features which combine to create a «poetics of the amusement park». Lights, flames and pipes are the elements in a playful rendering of the links between social and economic progress. These stylistic features, very frequent in the technical-industrial genre of cinema made between the Fifties and Seventies, can be found in documents describing other Italian areas. The article tries to show how, beyond the aesthetic level, those movies reveal a fundamental shift from a utilitarian idea of the environment that was widespread until the 1970s, to the beginnings of a new environmental discourse.

In Calabria la legge 56/2014 interviene su un territorio che da decenni affronta situazioni di emergenza economica, sociale e ambientale, oggi aggravate dall’emergenza sanitaria iniziata nel 2020, e lo fa in modo peculiare. La legge inserisce infatti la Calabria fra le Regioni ordinarie con Città metropolitana, mentre le due antecedenti leggi di sistema sull’ordinamento degli enti locali (leggi 142/1990 e 267/2000) la escludevano. Inoltre, diversamente dalle altre Regioni ordinarie, essa indica come Città metropolitana (Cm) una città non capoluogo regionale, che peraltro è molto distante per qualsiasi indicatore da tutte le altre Cm indicate dalla legge, ma ha l’assoluta originalità di essere una Twin City con Messina, anch’essa Città metropolitana per decisione della Regione Sicilia. Tutti questi elementi prefigurano forti impatti sia entro la regione sia nell’area trans-regionale dello Stretto, e rendono particolarmente interessante il locale processo di attuazione della 56 e il percorso di costruzione del Piano strategico metropolitano, ancora in corso, che dovrebbe discutere e chiarire l’indirizzo strategico del nuovo ente. Si tratta di una scelta di straordinaria complessità e che, complici il ritardo con cui la Cm di Reggio Calabria è stata istituzionalizzata, poi la pandemia, è al momento ancora interlocutoria.

In October 1970, the city of Genoa was devastated by a major flood. A few weeks later, hundreds of wrecked cars removed from the city's streets were sunk off the coast of Varazze, in the firstever Italian project to create an artificial reef. This initiative, which was inspired by similar experiences tried out in the United States and other countries, had been aimed at increasing the fish population and protecting the seabed but was carried out without any thorough preliminary scientific study, and produced other effects not in the initial intentions of the project. Nonetheless, this story should be read as one point in the broadest trajectory in the evolution of environmental discourse. This contribution, based on hitherto unpublished visual documentation, is therefore an investigation into the very specific meaning of the environment in Italy at the beginning of the 70s. The first part of the article provides a reconstruction of the operational details involved in creating the new underwater seascape of Varazze while in the second part, the earlier examples of similar initiatives are described, as well as the reactions of the scientific community. In conclusion, we reflect on the legacy of the initiative, both at the environmental level and as a basic step in the relationship between visual media and contemporary environmental discourse.

In recent decades, the coastline of Trieste has undergone a radical blueing operation during which it has re-acquired its relationship with the sea. This characteristic was central to its identity since it was declared a free port in 1719, but from the end of the 19th century onwards, this identity was overshadowed by large-scale industrialization, the major examples of which were the Iron works of Servola and the Aquila Oil Refinery. These
plants transformed the city’s identity into a centre for heavy industry but inevitably, in the post-war period, a slow but inexorable decline occurred, and they eventually closed. Trieste’s identity as an industrial town has gradually changed, to be replaced with a blueing agenda whose most significant example is a massive sports tourism event, a sailing regatta called the Barcolana. Thanks to this event, Trieste is tracing a new path towards the future based on caring for the sea and protecting it. The present article takes an ecocritical look at events and tries to account for the blueing agenda adopted by Trieste, by analysing both the known and unpublished visual documentation.

During the twentieth century, the name of Antonio Snider Pellegrini (1802-1885) was occasionally mentioned in writings about the history of the Continental Drift theory, since in 1858, he had published a graphic representation of it predating Alfred Wegener's diagrams by several decades. However, little else was known about this enigmatic figure raised in the Austrian port of Trieste, who spent his life travelling between four continents and whose professional ventures were very wide-ranging. He was a businessman who took part in setting up the Generali insurance company; a geographer, a leader of colonization projects, and an art dealer and collector, but according to recently discovered documents he also was a pro-Italian activist who played a dynamic role in the Revolutions of 1848-49, in the making of Italy and in the struggle against Austria. In those years, dividing his time between London and Civitavecchia, he figured prominently as a potential moneylender to the governments of Venice, Palermo, Turin and as supporter of the activists of the Roman Republic. When the turmoil came to an end, he was involved in saving the life of Giuseppe Mazzini, who was fleeing from Rome-an episode so far missing from biographies of the central figure in the Italian revolution-and he was a flanker of Italian exiles in London. This article sets out to reconstruct the complex history of a man constantly fluctuating between a passion for business and commerce, political activism, pioneering journeys, and fabulous art deals.

The cosmopolitan nature of Trieste played a pivotal role in the multi-layered story of the great project of cutting through the Isthmus of Suez and, as a result, in the revolution brought about in the nineteenth century by the opening of the canal. In more recent years, the New Silk Road project via Suez has made the former Austrian city one of its European docking points, thus reaffirming the joint role of Trieste and Suez in linking the two shores of the Mediterranean. This is just the latest stage of a story that started in 1719, when Charles VI granted Trieste the status of porto franco (free port), fostering its ambitions to become the principal centre for trade in the Adriatic Sea, as well as for relations with the Levant; the Imperial Privileged Oriental Company was founded in the same year. Trieste’s role in international commerce was further enhanced in 1843, when the Austrian Chancellor, Prince von Metternich, suggested that the city should become a hub for trade with the East Indies through the Adriatic route; shortly afterwards, the local Chamber of Commerce backed a mission to the Levant to investigate the convenience of transporting goods via Suez.
This chapter investigates Trieste’s role in the great expansion in world trade of the time, including the role played by a dynamic entrepreneurial class, the creation of financial service companies such as Assicurazioni Generali (1831) and the founding of the Austrian Lloyd shipping company (1833), as well as the commitment of several individuals to establishing solid connections with
Egypt, following in the footsteps of the enigmatic businessman Antonio Faraone (‘Pharaoh’) Cassis at the end of the eighteenth century.
It was from Trieste that Archduke Maximilian sought to set up cooperation between the Lloyd shipping company and the Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez. Subsequently, Baron Pasquale Revoltella, once appointed vice-president of the Company, took charge of the sale of shares, bought the Austrian share on behalf of the imperial government—the largest private part after that of Mohamed Sa’id—and eventually visited Egypt in 1861–1862, leaving an interesting account of his journey. Maximilian, Revoltella, and Ferdinand de Lesseps met in Trieste on 23 February 1859 and discussed how the Mediterranean might be connected to the Red Sea under the auspices of a trading genius: three features which Pietro Magni rendered allegorically in his marble sculpture entitled The Cutting of the Isthmus of Suez, located today in the Revoltella Museum in Trieste.
The aim of this contribution is to retrace the steps of these protagonists and witnesses of the Suez enterprise, including the renowned explorer Sir Richard Burton, appointed British consul in Trieste in 1872.

This contribution offers a glimpse into recent developments in the administrative, economic and political history of Trieste, within the framework of the local, regional and – because of the town’s unique circumstances – international communities. In the first parts of this work, the identification of the city with Italy’s eastern border is retraced, following the historical events of the second post-war period, a phase in which Trieste was one of the sites of the confrontation, also from a commercial point of view, between Western democracies and the socialist countries of the Eastern Bloc. From the nineteen-sixties onwards, the city had to re-establish its position both within the autonomous region of which it is now the capital – Friuli Venezia Giulia – and in terms of its relationships with the neighbouring countries of Slovenia and Croatia, which are now members of the European Union alongside Italy. This new situation has highlighted the uncertain nature of Trieste’s hinterland by reason of its limited administrative and political power. As is described in the second part of this work, the city had to redefine an economic system in which critical issues such as the absence of major manufacturing industry, the reduced activity of its port, and a trading network stuck in the local dimension have led to the image of Trieste being reconsidered from the point of view of an outside observer, and to a focus on tourism, also through, and as a consequence of, a new and different use of the sea. In this way, we will see how the redevelopment and gentrification of central areas such as the Cavana district or the triangle of via Torino has progressed at the same pace as the private sporting initiative known as the Barcolana, whose economic success and its promotion of the image of Trieste have contributed to remodelling the relationship between the city and the sea, that is, between its inhabitants and the resource upon which Trieste built its fortune.

In the minds of Sir Richard F. Burton, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Bruce Chatwin: some notes on travel and modernity – A necessary step to interpret the relationship between travel and Modernity is through the analysis of those travellers who walked along the path of the historical and cultural disruption that began in the 15th century in Italy, when Ptolemy’s Geographia was rediscovered. The drive towards exploration with the aim of filling the gaps in the representation of the Earth – following the new idea of modern space which was brought up by Ptolemy – is crowded along the centuries with figures who, throughout their lives, welded the discovery of the world to the romantic subject bearing the name of Mankind. In the 19th century, the elite phenomenon of traveling gives way to the involvement of the middle class – previously excluded – also thanks to the improvement of new tools for reading the world (i.e. the travel guide, whose fundamental archetypes are those of Baedeker and Murray). At the same time, a new model of man on the move was emerging among travelers who detached themselves from the growing tourism industry and were committed to continuing the mission of exploring the world but at the speed and with the amount of voracity that the century allowed in that time.
Sir Richard F. Burton is perhaps the most complex and complete example of a traveler transiting between the territories of the world and those of literature, languages and “the different ways that men have of being men”. Inspired by his figure, his successors Patrick Leigh Fermor and Bruce Chatwin will deepen the relationship between body, mind and travel, giving rise to the most original examples of nomadic travelers. In the first part of this work, the origin of the first tourist guides is traced as well as the standardizing functions they exercise on the reality they describe, such as Central Europe in the case of Baedeker. In the second part, through the reconstruction of the thoughts and steps of the travelers mentioned, we will try to grasp the most recent passages of the modern evolution of the traveler’s mind.

The gaze of Anaxilas: Reggio Calabria and Messina in the perspective of a supraregional Metropolitan City. Between proximity and integration. – The Agreement for the Integrated Area of the Strait of Messina (2019) and the establishment of the Port System Authority of the Strait (2019) are two of the most recent steps in a complex process of integration involving the Metropolitan Cities of Reggio Calabria and Messina. Both feature low population density, are sparsely populated and with often common historical experiences and their positions are far from the centre of the regional reference areas but also from their former provincial territory. Reggio and Messina in fact develop interdependencies and exchanges which leave room for the idea of a supra-regional metropolitan city. In this work, we analyze similarities and differences between the two cities, trying to show how mobility and maritime transport can represent new factors of integration, leading to a development commensurate with the resources of the territory. This strategy would require a new legislative framework, but would also enable the rediscovery of the ancient spirit of common government in the Strait Area: as if once again under the gaze of Anaxilas, the first ruler who attempted to bring the two cities under one government in the 5th century B.C.

The story of the translation of Ptolemy’s Geography on the eve of the birth of Modernity has often been written with a perspective that privileges events unfolding on the Western shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In the same period, however, a parallel process was taking place on the Eastern shores, at the court of Sultan Mehmed II in Constantinople, the city that was to become Istanbul, the heart of the newly born Ottoman Empire. Here, in 1465, the Byzantine scholar George Amiroutzes (ca. 1400–1475) and his son Mehmed Bey produced a new world map with Arabic texts, one of the great endeavours in geographical studies in the years following the fall of Constantinople (1453). They were subsequently commissioned to produce a new translation of Ptolemy’s work into Arabic. The analysis of a number of studies on Amiroutzes’ contribution to Mehmed II’s ecumenical vision, as well as that of other Byzantine scholars such as George of Trabzon (Trapezuntius), offers new insight into how the Ottoman Empire wished to create fresh room for manoeuvre and express its desire to expand. At the same time, it lays the groundwork for future research on toponymy, on the mathematical and geopolitical contents of cartographic production at the time of Mehmed and, particularly, on the world-map described in this work.

Covid-19, from Venice to Wuhan: a historical recognition and potential mutations of globalization. – The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic follow an east-west direction (from Asia via Europe to the Americas) which matches the flow of Modernity. This work aims to assess how these events are resulting in a comeback of what we might envisage as modern measurable space in Geography, through a historical comparison with containment measures put in place in the 18th century by Venice, during the plague. Indeed, Venice may be considered an archetype of global powers dealing with risk management issues and struggling to harmonize public health policies with the „needs‟ of trade. After offering an overview of the most common containment measures put in place by the countries affected by Covid-19, we will see how some of the measures implemented by the Venetians are showing their effectiveness today, and we will assess the extent to which the space recovered in this process is likely to transform the idea of globalization as it was known up until very recently.

In this paper we reconstruct the recent evolution of the landscape between the coastline and the south-western reliefs of Karst in the Trieste area; this is a territory with limited residential and productive uses, where altitude may vary within a range in excess of 300 metres. This condition, combined with the area’s hydrogeological instability, has affected the relationship between man and land over the centuries. The construction of infrastructure (the railway, in the mid-19th century, and the highway in the 20th) allowed the expansion of residential settlements in the municipalities concerned, as well as strengthening links between Trieste and its industrial area (Monfalcone) and Friuli, whereas these had previously been limited to the Karst alone. These modifications had important consequences on land use, revolutionizing the landscape whose features had been determined by agriculture and the presence of terraces, whose traces are still visible today. In the first part of this work we analyse the historical dynamics that resulted in the landscape changing, with research based on cartographic evidence and descriptions found in the main guides of the local area published in subsequent periods. In the second part we investigate the condition of Trieste after World War II, in relation to land-use changes. Lastly, we observe the most recent issues emerging in the debate with regard to the recovery of the area.

Abandonment, doubling, musealization: A Geography of the Grecanic Area from the 18th century to today. – The Grecanic Area occupies the most remote strip of the Ionian coast in Calabria. Since the beginning of the contemporary age, it has undergone a deep and steady process of depopulation which has led the original villages to different destinies. In this article, we inves-tigate the case of Pentedattilo, a small village which after a permanent abandonment is now moving along a path of musealization, and two cases of “doubling”: Bova-Bova Marina and Africo-Africo Nuovo. While the first case concerns two villages still extant and playing a significant role for the entire area, the latter is a case in which the ancient village has disappeared. These three cases give us a spectrum of types within which we can include most other villages in the area. Specific focuses are then dedicated to the development of communication routes; to the main as-pect of the Area’s identity, the Greko language; and to its most prestig-ious economic production, the bergamot.

Ci sono vite delle quali, più che una storia, sembra appropriato tracciare una geografia; come quella di Antonio Snider Pellegrini (1802-1885) – viaggiatore, uomo d’affari e collezionista, rimasta finora una geografia rimossa, mutilata, talvolta perfino bruciata. Tuttavia, dopo quasi un secolo e mezzo, grazie a documenti e carteggi inediti ritrovati negli archivi e nelle biblioteche europee e statunitensi, questo volume la riporta alla luce, ricostruendo le imprese e le opere del più originale tra i precursori della teoria della deriva dei continenti.
Si tratta di un lungo viaggio, che inizia in un castello dell’Alvernia e si conclude sulle colline di Brooklyn, attraversando il globo ottocentesco in pieno fermento; e di una geografia che interseca innumerevoli storie: lo sviluppo della Trieste asburgica, la nascita delle Assicurazioni Generali (di cui il protagonista fu uno dei fondatori), le peripezie di alcune famiglie dell’aristocrazia francese e armena, la colonizzazione del Texas, il taglio dell’istmo di Suez, le vicende di alcuni capolavori dell’arte europea; ma non solo. Nei capitoli, che si avvicendano come tappe di una lunga e avventurosa rotta esistenziale, si rivela infatti anche il ruolo di Snider Pellegrini nei tumulti italiani degli anni 1848-1849 e nel salvataggio di Giuseppe Mazzini alla fine della Repubblica Romana.