Image and memory

Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont, Ticino and Tuscany, since 2005

What: archiviazioni fotografiche digitali.
Where: Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont, Ticino (Svitzerland) and Tuscany.
How: cultural project.
When: since 2005.

Caselle Landi (Lodi, Italy).
Castle (Landi Castle [Castello Landi]).
Tower.
2009.
Digital filing (2009-00137).

The present which all we live has its ‘roots’ in the past, and together this last will be the foundation of the future. Just in the necessity to build what will come it’s the importance to know, understand and interpret facts developed on more or less far times.

Historical study and research are founded upon the documents: without their contribution the knowledge of the ages and of the people who preceded us even exist. In facts, it would be impossible for a studious to investigate upon fact happened centuries or millennia without the basis provided by the documents, anytype they’re: archival files, architectonical structures, archaeological sites, literature works, arriving till to oral tells.

Documents are the only link which recall the past to human memory. Memory which, in itself, is necessarily limited: every person remembers the events of his own existence only and this last covers a time span of few decades at the most.

Here’s, therefore, the importance of the historical evidences, whose ‘life’ can last longer than the human and for generations they provide «monuments»: in the primitive sense of the word, something which «makes remembered» (from Latin moneo). A past without evidences hasn’t memory; if there isn’t memory it can’t be know; and if it can’t be know – almost too taken for granted consequence – in practical facts it even exists. This’s the severe logic which the historical investigation imposes.

But there’s a problem: monuments aren’t eternal. Passing the years they suffer destructions and alterations, significant too, so that they erode their value and representativity. Therefore, preventing or trying to reduce the damages deriving from these losses’s a cultural operation as fundamental as finding and studying the documentations: an operation which ‘looks’ simultaneously to the past, to the present and to the future.

The Image and memory project, started in 2005 and led by Davide Tansini, takes care to harvest some of these evidences for study reasons, keeping them through simple and practical forms which combine the visual perception with the informatic instrument: the digital photographic reproductions.

At centre of attention there’re the exemplars of fortified and military architecture and the archival documentations. The temporal ambit’s referred to the Middle and the Modern Age, while the geographical to the ancient State of Milan, that’s to the territories now included among Emilia, Lombardy, eastern Piedmont, Tuscany and western Veneto.

For the fortified and military architecture, in particular, Image and memory doesn’t regard vaster and more known fortified complexes and panoramas or main buildings only, but gives attention also to so called ‘minor’, transformed or no longer whole structures, and to details and to secondary parts as well. All this to acquire the largest number of information related to every monument.

Till now, they have been made photographic shots at fortified and military architectures in the sequent Communes: Agazzano (Piacenza), Anacapri (Naples), Arena Po (Pavia), Belgioioso (Pavia), Berceto (Parma), Bereguardo (Pavia), Bettola (Piacenza), Binasco (Milan), Borgo Val di Taro (Parma), Brescia, Brugnato (La Spezia), Calendasco (Piacenza), Camairago (Lodi), Cappella Cantone (Cremona), Casaletto Ceredano (Cremona), Caselle Landi (Lodi), Castell’Arquato (Piacenza), Castelleone (Cremona), Castelnuovo Bocca d’Adda (Lodi), Castiglione d’Adda (Lodi), Cavacurta (Lodi), Cerro (Varese), Coli (Piacenza), Como, Cortemaggiore (Piacenza), Cremona, Cusago (Milan), Fombio (Lodi), Gossolengo (Piacenza), Grumello Cremonese ed Uniti (Cremona), Inverno e Monteleone (Pavia), La Spezia, Levanto (La Spezia), Locarno (Ticino, CH), Lodi, Maccastorna (Lodi), Maleo (Lodi), Medesano (Parma), Milan, Montecastello (Alexandria), Monterosso al Mare (La Spezia), Monticelli d’Ongina (Piacenza), Nibbiano (Piacenza), Noceto (Parma), Opera (Milan), Pandino (Cremona), Perledo (Lecco), Peschiera Borromeo (Milan), Piacenza, Piozzano (Piacenza), Pisa, Pizzighettone (Cremona), Ponte dell’Olio (Piacenza), Pontremoli (Massa-Carrara), Portovenere (La Spezia), Riomaggiore (La Spezia), Rivergaro (Piacenza), Roccabianca (Parma), Rocca de’ Giorgi (Pavia), Romanengo (Cremona), San Bassano (Cremona), San Colombano al Lambro (Milan), San Giorgio Piacentino (Piacenza), San Pietro in Cerro (Piacenza), Sant’Angelo Lodigiano (Lodi), Sarmato (Piacenza), Scandolara Ripa d’Oglio (Cremona), Somaglia (Lodi), Soncino (Cremona), Terranova dei Passerini (Lodi), Trezzo sull’Adda (Milan), Turano Lodigiano (Lodi), Vernasca (Piacenza), Vernazza (La Spezia), Vigolzone (Piacenza) and Villafranca in Lunigiana (Massa-Carrara).

The copies of the archival documentations have been acquired at the sequent institutes: State Archives of Cremona [Archivio di Stato di Cremona (Theresian Land Register [Catasto Teresiano]), State Archives of Milan [Archivio di Stato di Milano] (Authographs [Autografi], Communes [Comuni], Crivelli-Giulini, Royal Dispatches [Dispacci Reali], Greppi Gridario [Gridario Greppi], Fragments of Sforzeschi registers [Frammenti di registri sforzeschi], Royal Letters [Lettere Reali], Military [Militare] ancient part, Notarial [Notarile], Registers of the Chancelleries [Registri delle Cancellerie]), State Archives of Turin [Archivio di Stato di Torino] (Topographical Maps for A and B [Carte Topografiche per A e B]), Town Historical Archives of Pavia [Archivio Storico Civico di Pavia] (Communal Archives [Archivio Comunale]), Communal Historical Archives of Pizzighettone [Archivio Storico Comunale di Pizzighettone] (Resolutions Registers [Libri Ordinationum], Various registers [Registri vari]), Communal Library of Pizzighettone [Biblioteca Comunale di Pizzighettone] (Manuscripts [Manoscritti]), State Library of Cremona [Biblioteca Statale di Cremona] (Manuscripts [Manoscritti]), Sverige National Archives [Svenska Riksarkivet] (Outland towns [Utländska stads]).

The collection now includes about 13,000 images, shot between 2005 and 2009.

Belforte of Borgo Val di Taro (Parma, Italy).
Rocca.
East tower.
2009.
Digital filing (2009-02424).

• Organization and leading: Davide Tansini, historian and studious of fortified and military architecture, associated of the Italian Institute of Castles [Istituto Italiano dei Castelli] and of the Institute for History of Lombard Art [Istituto per la Storia dell’Arte Lombarda].
  

• Notes: harvesting and cataloguing of all the images are functional to study purposes. For this last aim and for personal use only Davide Tansini has been authorized by the owner or manager bodies to reproduce the archival documentations: so, transferring or distributing this material isn’t allowed. The photographic shots of architectonical monuments have been made in public or open to public space, with authorization in case of cultural estates proper to public bodies. They don’t contain information in military matter or concerning the war efficiency of the Country (1161/1941 Royal Decree) and they don’t draw works upon which they can assert royalties (633/1941 Act; 68/2003 Legislative Decree; 2/2008 Act). Davide Tansini’s material, legal and moral owner of every image (633/1941 Act; 68/2003 Legislative Decree).
  

Download the list of the fortified and military architectures (PDF format)

Download the list of the archives documentations (PDF format)

Cremona (Italy).
Mosa Gate [Porta Mosa].
2008.
Digital filing (2008-00659).

Davide Tansini’s contacts:

• mobile (+39) 349 2203693;

• e-mail davide@tansini.it.