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Geological reliefs

The current reorganization, combined with the systematic study by the Museum Activities Service of ISPRA, of the Palaeontological and Lithomineralogical Collections of the former Geological Survey of Italy, included the recognition and the analysis of geological models. Currently, the Collection consists of 17 geological reliefs of different sizes and metric scale, works made in various materials, from gypsum to wood to bronze.

These models were made following the instructions of specialists in the field, starting from the end of the nineteenth century, in conjunction with the start of the Geological Map of Italy.

Geologists and engineers were commissioned by the Royal Geological Survey to perform surveys on well-defined areas, and then publish technical reports on the institute Bulletins, the Regio Bollettino del Comitato Geologico d'Italia and Memorie per servire alla descrizione della Carta Geologica d'Italia (since 1886 only Memorie Descrittive), completing these studies, probably also for educational purposes, with the implementation of the related relief in painted gypsum or other material.

For some of these works we know the name of the geologist who has followed the work of relief plans, thanks to the handwritten signature, like the three-dimensional reliefs of the “Isola d'Elba” (1882) by Bernardino Lotti (1847-1933) and the “Isola d'Ischia” (1884-85) by Luigi Baldacci (1850-1927).

Around 1870 the Italian territories still lacking a modern cartographic documentation were quite extended. The Southern Italy, for example, did not have detailed topographic maps, which were carried out with considerable effort by the General Staff between 1862 and 1875, resulting in the expenditure of 2 million Liras, an enormous sum for the time. Consequently, the first field surveys of scholars of Royal Geological Survey, often resulted in the creation of a geological plan-relief, are extremely important, because they illustrate a first demographic and geomorphological structure of the country. This was shown also after major disasters, like the earthquake of Casamicciola (Ischia) in 1883, whose detailed study was commissioned the following year after the earthquake by Felice Giordano (1825-1892 ) to Baldacci.

At present, it seems that these three-dimensional geological reliefs have been carried out in the period going from the transfer of Geological Survey in Rome in 1875 to the First World War. The beginning of this activity coincides with the appointment, in 1876, of Felice Giordano at the direction of Royal Geological Survey, with the task of geological survey and systematic release of the Geological Map of Italy.

The direction of Giordano marks, despite financial constraints, the golden age of the great geological surveys on Italian soil, carried out with extreme accuracy and professionalism, as can be seen by the reliefs.

The reliefs of the former Geological Survey therefore belong to the historical memory of United Italy since 1870. Their scientific, economic and cultural value is then remarkable.

For these reasons, some of them – “Livorno con le isole Pianosa e Gorgona” (1914 ); “Isola d'Elba” (1882 ); “Isola d'Ischia” ( 1884-85 ); “Monte Soratte-Valle del Tevere” ( 1920 ca. ); “Sicilia” ( physical chart, ca. 1881); “Etna” (before 1870) - were chosen by the Central Museum of the Risorgimento (Monumental Complex of the Vittoriano, Piazza Venezia, Rome), to be exposed to the public, in 2006, on the occasion of the exhibition "Italy: Landscape and Territory". The exhibition was part of a broader government project, launched under the high patronage of the Presidency of the Republic and called "The Roots of the Nation. Italy Cultural Nation", which ended in 2011, coinciding with the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, in which the whole of the Relief Collection was exhibited.

In the same 2006 year two more three-dimensional reliefs, the “Provincia di Napoli” (plaster, late nineteenth century) and “Monte Vesuvio” (bronze, 1870) represented the ISPRA (still called APAT at the times) at the exhibition "Naples and its volcano. Memories and documents", at Palazzo Roccella in Naples.

In 2012 ISPRA published the monograph “I Plastici Geologici del Servizio Geologico d’Italia” (The Geological reliefs of the Geological Survey of Italy, FULLONI, 2012, ISPRA-Collezioni Museali), which deals with the historical context of the works, analyzes the maps of which they are three-dimensional transpositions, and reports their filing according to the regulation of the Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation (ICCD), of the Ministry of cultural heritage and tourism (MiBACT).

The Collection of reliefs has been arranged in geographical order going from North to South Italy.

Type of Collection: historical, educational, ostensive.