MAPFLY project: cartographic WebGIS of the University of Padova
MAPFLY project: cartographic WebGIS of the University of Padova (co-financing)
The Mobility & Humanities Project of Excellence is a co-funder of the ongoing MAPFLY project, led by the Department of Geosciences and aimed at providing the University of Padova with new technological infrastructures to access, visualise and navigate the massive volume of historical map collections stored in several departments of the University. These cartographic collections are distributed over various libraries (in particular the Geography, Geosciences and Engineering libraries). Currently, these materials are not accessible via WebGIS platforms. Therefore, the project aims to provide the University with new dynamic tools to enhance the usability of the collections for topological queries (digitalization, archiving, implementation of the web platform based on ArcGIS). This mobilisation of the cartographic heritage and knowledge of our University, scheduled for 2021, is critical to the Mobility & Humanities Project. Not only can the factual movements of people or materials be more effectively traced on historical and recent maps but also the cartographic heritage and knowledge of our University can be incorporated into new research and communication practices with the extra-academic audience through the public engagement’s initiatives promoted by the Museum of Geography.
About the MapFly PROJECT
The University of Padova claims an impressive cartographic heritage, dated from 1668 to the present day, distributed in various Libraries and Departments and not yet known as it deserves. In particular, the Geography and Geosciences Libraries preserve over 40,000 maps of various types, from topographic and geographical maps to geological, geothematic and historical maps.
Thanks to the Mapfly Project, funded by the call “Infrastrutture Immateriali di Ricerca” (Intangible Research Infrastructures) of the University of Padova and which entered its operational phase in November 2020, this cartographic heritage is made available to the public (fall 2021) through the creation of a WebGIS portal. This allows us to verify the presence of maps for the area of interest by searching the basemap. As it regards historical cartography in the public domain, it also allows to view the georeferenced digital reproduction on the web and proceed with the download of the same in the form of a file (GeoTIF) to be used locally on a GIS device (including maps published in “Memorie di Scienze Geologiche”).
The Web App will greatly enhance the accessibility to the extraordinary cartographic resources of the University, which have been difficult to be consulted and searched through traditional catalogs until now. Through the WebApp it will in fact be possible to know the availability of all the cartographic heritage for the area of interest, to filter it by type of map or on a temporal basis, and (for the part with a digital representation available) proceed with the diachronic study of a territory using the techniques of representations (transparencies) offered by the App or by downloading and superimposing the cartography of interest in a GIS.
The portal was developed on the model of prestigious international agencies, in particular USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer, and involved transversal skills: expert GIS technicians for georeferencing and for the creation of an additional Web App dedicated to data entry and the development of the web interface; student collaborators for the description of the encumbrance polygons of the cartography; librarians for cataloging, for analysing descriptive metadata and for linking maps to both the catalog and the University repository of digital collections. A technological partner supported the development of the Web App and its installation on the server. The acquisition of the digital maps was carried out on a scanner developed for this service.”
Using the app is simple:
- 1. Find or search for your place of interest.
- 2. Select map categories, if needed.
- 3. Click on the map view to see which maps are available for that location.
- 4. Select the scale, if necessary, and use the timeline to explore thumbnails of the maps, see their extent and select the ones you need.
- 5. Check in which libraries the maps are stored, with the link to the catalog Galileo Discovery in the side panel, or view the available maps..
- 6. Use the slider for each map in the side panel to control its transparency and compare it to other maps.
- 7. Download the georeferenced map, if you wish, or see the images in high resolution through Phaidra.
- 8. Press the button Reset before changing place.
To report any problem or for more information about the project, please contact us at the following email address: biblio.geoscienze@unipd.it .
Videotutorial
BO2022: The European space. Transnational and translocal mobility
BO2022: The European space. Transnational and translocal mobility
Postdoctoral project supervised by Maria Cristina La Rocca (Jan 2019-Dec 2020)
Giulia Zornetta
Since its foundation around 1222, the University of Padua has been one of the most important stages of the peregrinatio academica. During the Middle Ages and the early modern period, wandering from one university to another was a common practice among European students, especially among the ultramontani (i.e. those coming from the other side of the Alps). Consequently, many students from both the Italian peninsula and the wider European area spent one or more years in the city to study Law, Arts and Medicine, or Theology.
This research project is part of the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the University of Padua and aims at identifying the main mobility flows of the students during the late medieval period. It takes into account both the push and pull factors and the political choices and contingencies. The project is linked to a research team currently engaged in building a database to map the academic population from the late Middle Ages to the modern period.
The space of libertas. Religious, political and intellectual freedom
The space of libertas. Religious, political and intellectual freedom
Postdoctoral project supervised by Andrea Caracausi (Jan 2019-Dec 2020)
Dennj Solera
The project aims to analyse the theme of libertas patavina, intended as an incentive to the mobility of people, knowledge and ideas towards the University of Padua, in particular between the second half of the 16th and the early 17th century, at the sunset of the University’s “Golden Age”, in the years of Galileo Galilei and Cesare Cremonini. The study focuses both on social life and on the confessional and political climate, to understand how these mobilities have contributed to create a more or less favourable context for the development of knowledge and research in the early modern age. The main goal is to understand the impact that political and institutional choices had in expanding or contracting the movement of the academic and student population and in the development of networks of knowledge useful for scientific debate. For this reason, I am implementing the database (Padua 2022) containing all the profiles of Paduan students for the 16th-18th century period, when the Counter-Reformation and the confessional divisions risked blocking the Paduan Studium.
