Cartography and Production of Space: a Challenge for the Historian

Abstract

Cartographic sources have been used to support the role of “imagination” and “invention” in the production of spaces and locality. Their role as instruments of power and producers of order has been underlined inside the specialised field of the history of cartography, but also in front of a wider attendance of historians. However, the direct and apparently readable character of the map still leads to naive interpretations, and the overwhelming role of “power”, used as the almost unique category of analysis, produces equivalent simplification. The aim of this paper, written in form of notes, is to show in new terms the potential of cartography for the historian. It will focus on the multiplicity of entries needed for a proper interpretation of a cartographic source; it will show how the use of maps creates a necessity, and a welcome occasion, for the historian to be reflexive; it will finally suggest some advantages and risks of the introduction of temporal dimension in new cartographic representations.