Le fortificazioni della Toscana Tirrenica: metodologie e fonti dell'indagine geo-storica

Abstract

[EN] The research about Tyrrhenian Tuscany fortifications – more than 150 structures studied with Anna Guarducci and Marco Piccardi – is a multidisciplinary and complex topic that requires methods and sources typical of geographical-historical research. This because of various environmental and landscape peculiarity of Tyrrhenian Tuscany and because of her historical sequence from Medieval Age to nowadays. In Tyrrhenian Tuscany – thanks to its strategic and business importance – although low population, cereal and pastoral “latifondo”, the marshes and few settlements, a dense fortifications system was gradually developed until the unification of Italy. This study starts from the first researches on Maremma fortifications on Seventies-Eighties of last century, and they also begins from following studies concerning all coastal area or single places, buildings and small areas. This research take into consideration those researchs methods and subjects. But because of the study area extension a larger range of printed and unpublished sources was analyzed. The set of documents was composed by maps, iconographies, photographies, aerial photographies, territorial and literaly studies, etc. The political and administrative fragmentation of Tyrrhenian Tuscany explains the position of the sources (about fortifications) in libraries and archives of Tuscany (Massa, Lucca, Firenze, Pisa, Livorno, Piombino, Siena, Grosseto, Orbetello), of Italy (Genova, Modena, Roma e Napoli) and of foreign countries (Simancas, Parigi, Vienna e Praga); and in municipal and state or authorithy archives too. The partition expalains also the local and regional nature of the most studies. All these documents are often thematic and incomplete, and have been completed with the study of the present contexts (toponyms, buildings and direct evidences of inhabitants), in order to identify and locate the fortifications. This comparative analysis, together with measurements allowed by cartography, has allowed the recognition of the position of more than 30 towers have now disappeared or reduced to ruin.