Giovanna ZAVETTIERI, Rome "Tor Vergata" University, Italy
Monica MORAZZONI, IULM University of Milan, Italy
Lisa SCAFA, Rome "Tor Vergata" University, Italy
Alessandro DELMONEGO, IULM University of Milan, Italy
Critical studies on toponymy, which do not focus solely on the etymology of the name, highlight how naming and re-naming are the result of processes of territorial control. The use of certain names is often aimed at promoting particular cultural and/or political-ideological elements. Toponymy is therefore vulnerable to change, as evidenced by the re-naming and re-semantization of places. In this sense, toponymy can be considered as the reproduction or appropriation of power relations on a discursive level, as well as a tool to deconstruct the neutrality of space, as it helps to understand how the territory has been loaded with sense (and therefore with meanings) over time.
The aim of this paper is to show how the Arab presence in Sicily, through the travel narrative of Ibn Gubayr (1145-1217), contributed to re-semantize the geographical space by loading it with meanings through the filters of Arab-Islamic culture. In the course of his life, Ibn Gubayr made three journeys from Spain to the Middle East, the first of which took him to Messina. From there he set off in the direction of Trapani, writing in his travel diary, with a wealth of details, of the place names and natural, rural and settlement aspects of the territory, which are useful today for reconstructing the mosaic of the island’s landscape as perceived by the traveller himself.
The analysis of toponymy therefore becomes central in showing the discursive construction of the places narrated by Ibn Gubayr, just as the cartography of the time, compared with that of the present day, makes it possible to visualise the itineraries, the toponyms used by the Arabs to denominate places and the multitude of identities that they assume on the basis of the denomination acquired over time. The research therefore runs along three frameworks: travel literature, critical toponymy and historical and digital cartography.
Mots clés : toponymy|Sicily|Arabs|cartography|travel itineraries
A103369GZ