The south of Italy through sketches and travel notes

Abstract

The image of the south of Italy has almost always been ignored or interpreted “differently” in the most famous iconographic and narrative repertories.

The objective difficulties of accessibility to places and, in many cases, a plausible representation didn’t always correspond to the consolidated expectation in the collective imagination of a period.

Therefore, it was necessary to translate these notes through an ideal and evocative form, through a successive elaboration, in theory, in different spaces and times, often altering the true identity.

The notebooks of the travellers are a different question: that expansion of memory revealed thoughts and sensations through notes, and quick sketches but, above all froze the true identity of the places, made up of objects, persons, locations, colours, lights and unknown atmosphere, in a momentary impression. 

From a simple personal notebook to a more elegant carnet de voyage of the Grand Tour, an iconographic repertoire thus emerges which shows a different image of southern Italian architectural and urban landscapes. It is a reality filtered by the human and cultural sensitivity of the observer, who becomes the instrument for an original interpretation for urban and territorial areas, to catch unknown or neglected aspects, or to verify transformations and extant landscapes.