Fonti geografiche e cartografiche per lo studio del paesaggio rurale della Sardegna

Maps elaborated in the early modern age provide an idea of rugged, mountainous, wooded Sardinia. To reinforce these suggestions, coming mostly from the literary sources, rich cartouches are inserted into the seventeenth century maps. They exalt the fertility and richness of the island; sometimes they depict it as a "goddess of abundance" that brings corn ears and olive twigs in her hands. Only between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, are produced topographies obtained from reliefs and measurements. These are real government instruments aimed at organizing and transforming the territory.