Microcosmi mediterranei narrati e illustrati nell’isolario dell’ingegnere militare Francesco Ferretti

Abstract

[EN] Flouwered in the first decades of the fifteenth century, the cartographic-literary genre of islands books constitutes a suggestive and important chapter in the history of geographical representations, despite having aroused limited interest among cartography scholars. Consisting of an organic set of representations of the various islands of the world, the "isolari" associate nautical and cartographic elements with descriptions in prose or verse on the physical, historical, political, economic but also mythological conditions of certain islands realities initially of the Mediterranean only and, a second time, of the other seas and oceans of the planet. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are the period of greatest diffusion of the isolaristics genre, with the publication of specialized works that can be considered as real thematic atlases. The treatise on the art of war known as "Diporti Notturni" fits into this vein, written by the military engineer from Ancona Francesco Ferretti in the last decades of the sixteenth century, part of which has the specific connotations of an "isolario". The investigation aims to shed light on the figure of the engineer Ferretti, on his literary production, on the peculiarities of islands of the Mediterranean world, and especially the Aegean, which has always emanated a singular charm, assuming symbolic roles at all times, also combining the myth and reality.