Giovanni MAURO, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Italy
Claudio Sossio DE SIMONE, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Italy
At the beginning of XVIII century, the label “Royal Sites” was used to point out the areas owned or purchased by the royal house of Bourbon in the kingdom of Naples (Southern Italy) for hunting, the favorite sport of the king Charles of Bourbon and his son Ferdinand. Often, in these areas the royal house built their own buildings for the accommodation of the royal court. Frequently, these residences were the first step to develop a new management of these landscapes. The well-known case of San Leucio, a royal site near Caserta and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a good example of the innovative policies of the Bourbons: the ancient hunting Lodge of the Belvedere was converted into a silk industry with the aim to create an idealistic community of workers, who were guaranteed homes, schools, medical care etc. Detailed maps of this region were created to improve the administration and organization of the “Royal Sites”. For this reason, the cartographer Antonio Rizzi Zannoni realized, at the end of the 18th century, the map of the “Carte della Reali Cacce” and “Topografia dell’Agro Napoletano” (Conti 2020,135-149). In the following years, the “Royal Sites” lost their original functions, so they were abandoned (or reused). These changes were partially represented in later maps, such as the 1862 Map of Southern Italy. This paper aims to present a geodatabase developed to promote and investigate these Royal Sites. Starting from a detailed analysis of the bibliographic and cartographic sources, we intend to geo-reference several heterogeneous information concerning these cultural assets. Overall, we want to analyze their spatial distribution within the Campania Region, mainly between the Provinces of Caserta and Naples. Finally, we propose a reflection on the use of these tools to support the development of a WebGIS, according to the rules HGIS science and public geography (Grava et alii, 207-215).
Mots clés : Bourbon’s Royal Sites|geodatabase|HGIS|WebGIS|public geography
A104020GM