«We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants»: so wrote Bernard of Chartres in the twelfth century (Metalogicon, III, 4). That’s a metaphor which intends to express the dependence of the modern culture from the ancient and it’s very adequate for the rediscovery of the important knowledge assets of the Grand Tour’s literature. Through long stays in Europe and in Italy, many travelers-writers have described the characteristics of the areas visited from a critical point of view, highlighting their strong and weaknesses elements with great wit and sense of observation. One of the most significant and unknown works concerning this literary current is the tale of the trip from Paestum to Policastro made in 1828 by Craufurd Tait Ramage: his sketchbooks are not only a description of the evidence of the past and of the archaeological remains of the Ancient Greece, but a small geo-history of the Cilento (shortly before its insurrection of that same year), as the first stage of a journey that returns a fresco of the South of Italy as it was before the process of Italian unification, respect to its agricultural landscapes, customs and dietary habits, attitudes, superstitions, society, culture, religious and political affairs. So the Ramage’s writings try to bring into focus such important aspects of the anthropic and natural geographical landscapes traversed and they can help us, inductively, to reconstruct their social and economic structure. The Ramage’s trip therefore is an aesthetic and geographical description founded on a subjective and objective spirit, in which influences caused by observation of natural beauties are not limited to the mere aesthetic contemplation but, through culture and skills of observation, they make ‘talking’ the territory and his testimonies. Therefore, in this literary work they are evident the fundamental parts of a geo-historical process whose consequences are today discernible in the critical points of Southern Italy, and of Cilento in particular, according to same dynamics which have been widely and effectively described already two hundred years ago.
Il viaggio di C.T. Ramage attraverso il Cilento nella prima metà del XIX secolo, tra geografia e storia di una terra ‘sconosciuta’
SINISCALCHI, Silvia
2015
Abstract
«We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants»: so wrote Bernard of Chartres in the twelfth century (Metalogicon, III, 4). That’s a metaphor which intends to express the dependence of the modern culture from the ancient and it’s very adequate for the rediscovery of the important knowledge assets of the Grand Tour’s literature. Through long stays in Europe and in Italy, many travelers-writers have described the characteristics of the areas visited from a critical point of view, highlighting their strong and weaknesses elements with great wit and sense of observation. One of the most significant and unknown works concerning this literary current is the tale of the trip from Paestum to Policastro made in 1828 by Craufurd Tait Ramage: his sketchbooks are not only a description of the evidence of the past and of the archaeological remains of the Ancient Greece, but a small geo-history of the Cilento (shortly before its insurrection of that same year), as the first stage of a journey that returns a fresco of the South of Italy as it was before the process of Italian unification, respect to its agricultural landscapes, customs and dietary habits, attitudes, superstitions, society, culture, religious and political affairs. So the Ramage’s writings try to bring into focus such important aspects of the anthropic and natural geographical landscapes traversed and they can help us, inductively, to reconstruct their social and economic structure. The Ramage’s trip therefore is an aesthetic and geographical description founded on a subjective and objective spirit, in which influences caused by observation of natural beauties are not limited to the mere aesthetic contemplation but, through culture and skills of observation, they make ‘talking’ the territory and his testimonies. Therefore, in this literary work they are evident the fundamental parts of a geo-historical process whose consequences are today discernible in the critical points of Southern Italy, and of Cilento in particular, according to same dynamics which have been widely and effectively described already two hundred years ago.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
