The incipit of this article is due to a university publication by:

Giuliano Volpe, Ruggero Martines, Anna VellaTina Caroppo Raffaella Cassano , Loredana Ficarelli , Grazia Semeraro on how a Mapping of Cultural Heritage map was compiled and edited, in the territory of the Puglia Region, with a mentality less linked to simple cataloging but, closer to a critical analysis of the phenomena that have created a concentration of artifacts and stories related to the territories in question.

The Charter was divided into three essential themes: Cultural Heritage, Landscape and Constraints. The subject of the census was all the real estate and areas of cultural and landscape value located in extra-urban areas (in particular those indicated in articles 136 and 142 of the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code).

The conceptual structure of the Charter

The data corpus is based on the concepts of Topographical Unit, Site, Multilayered site.

The minimum element is the Topographical Unit (UT), i.e. the single cultural asset, which corresponds to or is included in a Site, understood from the point of view of landscape archaeology, as a place in which the presence[1] of man has left traces, sometimes “invisible” (Manacorda 2007); example of Topographical Unit with respect to the Site as a whole can be one of the buildings that make up a farm, one of the huts that make up a village or one of the tombs in a necropolis. This hierarchical decomposition[1] allows, on the one hand, a greater detail in the reading of the settlements and, on the other, to avoid the risk of the multiplication of sites (also indicated in Manacorda 2007, 12-14) and deriving from the attribution of site rank to any type of evidence. The Site, in turn, can be part of a Stratified Topographic Context (CTS), corresponding to a set of several sites characterized by co-evolutionary relationships and characterized by a deep and perceptible integration with the surrounding landscape context; the historical cities have been equated to CTS deriving from the sum of the SITES "ancient city" and "modern city".ù

The information contained in the Carta dei Beni was integrated into the territorial database of the SIT, even if the collection and cataloging phase was carried out in offline mode, through a client-server type system. This phase made it possible to consolidate the data model which, also in the perspective of use by the Regional Observatory for the quality of landscapes and cultural heritage, will be transferred to web technology using the basic services of the GIS, available today. The data model is based on a classification based on the concepts of Type, Category and Function, allowing for the global filing of all types of data of a territory, overcoming the classic fragmentation into different files according to the categories of goods to be described. The Map is characterized by a high level of precision in the location and perimeter of the assets (a fundamental element for the purposes of protection and planning) thanks to the possibility of using the Regional Technical Map on a scale of 1: 5,000 and the 2006 Orthophoto as a basis. A critical element in the creation of the Charter of Assets is the cadastral component, of particular importance in the location of constraints. This was perhaps the requirement that most contributed to the stipulation of the agreement with the Territorial Agency for the rasterization and georeferencing of the land registry sheets and for the unification of the cadastral cartography to the WGS84 system, adopted by the regional SIT, through the identification of known points in the two reference systems.

The data: the provinces of Bari and Brindisi

The Working Group of the University of Bari in the first phase of the project proceeded to verify the data collected in the current Territorial Plan, as well as the censuses carried out, on the occasion of the first fulfilments and/or adaptations of the General Regulatory Plans (PRG) municipal to the PUTT, by the Municipalities; this has made it possible to clarify the nature of many Assets surveyed by the PUTT, often approximate[1]ve and generic, as well as to clarify their chronology, only sometimes reported and in any case indicated for long chronological arcs. Furthermore, the comparison between the data collected by the PUTT and those obtained from the bibliographic research has shown that in many cases the aforementioned regional legislation brings together under a single denomination Assets which are distinct from a functional and chronological point of view, i.e. without further indications useful for precise location, while many Assets documented bibliographically even before 2002, the year of drafting of the Plan, are absent.

The verification of the data collected in the regional legislation was accompanied by the complete and systematic examination of the published documentation relating to the territorial context. In fact, against 794 Properties identified by the PUTT for the province of Bari (excluding the Municipalities currently part of the BAT) and 341 Properties indicated for the province of Brindisi, the census carried out under the Charter of Cultural Heritage allowed the identification of 2284 Goods and therefore a difference of 1149 Goods.

The breakthrough in the data cataloging mindset and Lama Balice

The scope of the work carried out up to now emerges even more clearly if one considers the possibility of now considering the set of assets surveyed not as individual buildings or as isolated evidence, but as an organic complex inserted in specific landscape and historical-cultural contexts and formed around precise aggregating elements of an environmental, geomorphological and infrastructural nature. The identification and the perimeter of the CTS therefore allow to read in a diachronic and overall way the settlement story of some territorial contexts which, due to the geographical position, the optimal natural resources, the presence of important infrastructures such as the road axes and particularly demic poles importance as the urban centers, are occupied, without solution of continuity, within a long chronological span. The examination carried out so far has allowed the identification of 12 CTS in the province of Bari: an interesting example is certainly represented by the set of properties gravitating around the hydrographic basin of Lama Balice (Figure above) which, from the Murge of Northern Bari - where it originates - up to the coast near the Fesca district of Bari - where it ends -, crosses the municipal areas of Ruvo, Terlizzi, Bitonto, Modugno, Palo del Colle and Bari.

The erosive furrow of the Lama has in fact been an attractive element since prehistoric times, both for the possibilities of water supply that it guaranteed and for its conformation, which can be used as a natural way of crossing the territory from the hinterland to the coast. The persistence of settlements in the Roman and early Middle Ages, documented by small inhabited nuclei located both along the main riverbed and along the beds of the 'secondary' lame, was further favored by the construction, in the 2nd century. AD, of the Via Traiana, which reorganized pre-existing road sections and which certainly constituted another important 'aggregating' element for this territorial sector. The vitality of this territory still in the Middle Ages is well documented by the presence of numerous rural churches which are concentrated[1] in the area surrounding the blade and, in particular, not far from the ancient Casale di Camarata, in the territory of bitonto. The high number of rural religious buildings seems to confirm the widespread population of this territorial context still in its age.

The data: historic cities and rural architecture

The group of teachers and researchers belonging to the Polytechnic of Bari has been involved in identifying and defining the limits of the ancient cities present throughout the territory of Puglia and their modern expansion. The historic city is understood as a complex urban organism, the result of a relationship between several aggregates pertaining to the same urban center, the product of its specific historical, typological and morphological process. The work program has assumed as a priority the reorganization of the edited data processed within the departmental structures; later they were integrated with monographic studies and insights. The criteria for tracing the perimeter of the "City" was based on the systematic comparison of the built-up part, present in the IGM cartography at 25000 of 1949, and the built-up part, reported by the historical IGM cartography of 1870 (available in scale 1:50000) .

For the perimeter of the modern city, i.e. for the expansion parts, a systematic comparison was conducted between the buildings present in the IGM Cartography at 25000 of 1949 and the Regional Technical Cartography. The Polytechnic was then called to systematize the perimeters concerning the Cultural Heritage of Puglia, already taken over by the working groups of the other Universities. The research therefore concerned the reading of the entire Apulian countryside where the precise and recognizable shapes of the buildings and rural houses, the structure of the roads, sheep tracks and canals are evident; where the subdivision [1] of the soil, the arrangement of the crops, the alignments, the tree masses are clear elements that contribute to the formation and determination of the identity recognition of the landscape. The territory is therefore understood as a complex construction, defined over time, where nature and artifice enter into symbiosis making the differences imperceptible. The theme of the Apulian rural house, called masseria, rural building, rural house, tower, sheep farms, field farms, has been examined above all in relation to the types of settlement and the relationships that it has established with the territory. The shape of the rural building does not appear as a single organism, as a single completed artefact, but is defined through the superimposition, addition, replacement of elements linked to its productive evolution. An initial reflection concerned the relationship between the building and the territory, i.e. its ability to organize and catalyze; the structuring of the territory, its road[1] and infrastructural networks were then examined. From these reflections arises the need to identify homogeneous areas, where the physical factor [1] and historical events determine not only the perpetuation of land use techniques, but also the stagnation of settlement systems and the repetition of housing forms. Finally,[1]we proceeded with the delimitation and filing of about 1315 Architectural Assets including farms, jazzi, villas, casini, farmhouses, towers, etc., using the criterion of recognition through published material and search for toponyms on the IGM cartography at 1:25000 of 1949.

From what has been read above, you will have noticed how much information we have at our disposal to create links between the stories of the Territory and the Tourism offered to our guests. Only with the few data introduced in this article would it be possible to create three whole days of thematic excursions on history, nature and rural architecture. Days that will boost hotel sales and attendance.

Possibilities that until a few years ago were precluded to us, because the software had a very high learning curve and the data was only available in the form of uncorrelated geographical coordinates and cataloged with this care.

The moral of the article is to take an interest in cartographic technology to understand the richness of the stories enclosed in the territory which can become the fundamental element for distinguishing your hotel product from that of many others; precisely because your position in the world offers unique products that cannot be reproduced by others.

We just have to familiarize ourselves and understand the functioning of programs, among other free things, such as QGIS or Google Maps itself, connect to the address http://www.sit.puglia.it/ and work with the layouts and points offered by the catalogs on the architectural and environmental heritage mentioned.

Difficult job but that could give great results.

Or connect to www.ailovetourism.com where we will be at your disposal for tailor-made products for your accommodation facility.