As is well known, today’s urban reality makes geographers question some traditional oppositions such as city-countryside. For instance, Edward Soja explores the regionality of cityspace in the light of two main concepts: “synekism”, that is “dwelling together in a shared space”, and “thirdspace”, that is a space considered as third as regards the opposites converging in it. In this paper, I shall assert that the notion of third/thirdness (third way between opposites) is nothing but the cultural legacy of Italian chorographical tradition, at least according to the way in which this tradition imposed itself in Bologna, in the second half of the sixteenth century, thanks to some geographers such as Egnazio Danti and their praxis of chorographical surveying. By interpreting Danti’s chorographical maps – in particular that of the Bononiensis Ditio, where the city and the countryside constitute a unitary lived space, without any sharp cultural boundary – as well as the history of some toponyms and cippi we still meet with in the countryside around Bologna, I shall attempt to show why the chorographical culture of image is grounded on the middle terms, on the third ways between opposites. In my view, it is exactly from the thirdness proper to chorography that contemporary geography should re-start in order to find a new representational code for lived spaces.

La geografia della realtà urbana contemporanea mette in discussione i dualismi oppositivi come quello fra città e campagna. Edward Soja, ad esempio, analizza la regionalità dello spazio urbano alla luce dei concetti di synekism, che riguarda l’abitare insieme in uno spazio condiviso, e di thirdspace, uno spazio che è terzo in quanto in esso gli opposti convengono. Nel presente contributo si sostiene che una categoria come quella della terzità (terza via fra opposti) costituisce in realtà l’eredità culturale della tradizione corografica del nostro paese, per come essa si è affermata a Bologna nel corso del Cinquecento, in virtù della prassi di rilevamento nella campagna felsinea, compiuta da geografi come Egnazio Danti. La cultura corografica dell’immagine, secondo chi scrive, si fonda sulle vie di mezzo, sulla confluenza degli opposti. Tale cultura di terzità/medietà si evince tanto dalle tavole corografiche, come la Bononiensis Ditio in Vaticano, nella quale la città e il contado di Bologna appaiono costituire un unitario spazio vissuto, senza margini culturali netti, quanto dai toponimi o dai cippi commemorativi disseminati nella campagna bolognese. Dalla terzità della corografia si può oggi ripartire per trovare un nuovo codice di rappresentazione degli spazi vissuti e, più in generale, di lettura del contemporaneo.

I margini di Bologna. Sulle vie di mezzo della corografia

BONFIGLIOLI, STEFANIA
2014

Abstract

As is well known, today’s urban reality makes geographers question some traditional oppositions such as city-countryside. For instance, Edward Soja explores the regionality of cityspace in the light of two main concepts: “synekism”, that is “dwelling together in a shared space”, and “thirdspace”, that is a space considered as third as regards the opposites converging in it. In this paper, I shall assert that the notion of third/thirdness (third way between opposites) is nothing but the cultural legacy of Italian chorographical tradition, at least according to the way in which this tradition imposed itself in Bologna, in the second half of the sixteenth century, thanks to some geographers such as Egnazio Danti and their praxis of chorographical surveying. By interpreting Danti’s chorographical maps – in particular that of the Bononiensis Ditio, where the city and the countryside constitute a unitary lived space, without any sharp cultural boundary – as well as the history of some toponyms and cippi we still meet with in the countryside around Bologna, I shall attempt to show why the chorographical culture of image is grounded on the middle terms, on the third ways between opposites. In my view, it is exactly from the thirdness proper to chorography that contemporary geography should re-start in order to find a new representational code for lived spaces.
2014
Atti del XXXI Congresso Geografico Italiano
341
350
Bonfiglioli, Stefania
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/673582
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