Two years ago, while cataloguing the engravings owned by the “Franco Anelli” Speleological Documentation Centre in Bologna, Italy, two very ancient small cave maps were found. They were clearly cut off from a book, but they completely lacked captions. As a consequence, it was impossible to define both name and location of the caves as well as the year in which the maps were printed. Later, by comparing these maps with other engravings from the same collection, which were published in 1651 in the biography of St Rosalie edited by Giordano Cascini, it was possible to attribute one of the two maps to the cave of St Rosalia on Mt Pellegrino (Palermo, Sicily). In the XVII century, this small natural cave was transformed into a church dedicated to the worship of Rosalia Sinibaldi (St Rosalie), a young lady who spent most of her life therein. It was also possible to ascertain that the second engraving represents the map of the first cave in which Rosalia Sinibaldi started her “troglodytic” life: the St Rosalie cave at Quisquina, Sicily. Anyway It was not possible to identify the publication(s) containing the two maps found two years ago but led us to establish that 1651 is the year of publication of the two actually known most ancient printed cave maps, namely the one contained in the St Rosalie biography published posthumous by the Jesuit Giordano Cascini in 1651.
The oldest printed maps in the world
FORTI, PAOLO
2009
Abstract
Two years ago, while cataloguing the engravings owned by the “Franco Anelli” Speleological Documentation Centre in Bologna, Italy, two very ancient small cave maps were found. They were clearly cut off from a book, but they completely lacked captions. As a consequence, it was impossible to define both name and location of the caves as well as the year in which the maps were printed. Later, by comparing these maps with other engravings from the same collection, which were published in 1651 in the biography of St Rosalie edited by Giordano Cascini, it was possible to attribute one of the two maps to the cave of St Rosalia on Mt Pellegrino (Palermo, Sicily). In the XVII century, this small natural cave was transformed into a church dedicated to the worship of Rosalia Sinibaldi (St Rosalie), a young lady who spent most of her life therein. It was also possible to ascertain that the second engraving represents the map of the first cave in which Rosalia Sinibaldi started her “troglodytic” life: the St Rosalie cave at Quisquina, Sicily. Anyway It was not possible to identify the publication(s) containing the two maps found two years ago but led us to establish that 1651 is the year of publication of the two actually known most ancient printed cave maps, namely the one contained in the St Rosalie biography published posthumous by the Jesuit Giordano Cascini in 1651.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
