Neverland. The role of the cartography in the disputes for the use and the possession of the alluvial isles and floodplain areas of the river Ticino in the Modern age.

During the early modern period, several disputes concerning the management and possession of the natural resources occurred, particularly concerning the sedimentation of rights and jurisdictions and in consequence of the evolution of the local or regional socio-economic context, the institutional changes, and so on. These conflicts tended to be particularly frequent where the availability of these resources was changing, due to both human action and the specific environmental condition. Our work focuses on a resource that is particularly subject to changes, such as the alluvial islets and the floodplain areas which, due to the natural evolution of the rivers, made themselves available or not available for anthropic occupation, judicial claim, and economic exploitation. We focused on the case of the river Ticino and on the stretch affected by the possessions of the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan, a prestigious welfare institution and one of the largest landowners in the fertile low plain of Lombardy, where the control of river waters was very important for the feed the dense irrigation network. Among the primary sources on the disputes for the use of the islands and floodplain areas of Ticino available in the archive of the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan, we conducted an integrated analysis between written sources, drawings and cartography, in order to better understand the intricate plot and the wise use of different documents to certificate the rights in a dispute.

Keywords: Conflicts, Natural Resources, Ticino, Lombardy, Cartography-

Anna Rosa Candura, Matteo Di Tullio, Luca Fois, L’isola che non c’è. Il ruolo della cartografia nelle controversie attorno agli usi e al possesso degli isolotti alluvionali e delle aree golenali del Ticino al tramonto dell’età moderna in "STORIA URBANA " 175/2023, pp 65-86, DOI: 10.3280/SU2023-175004