Abstract
Abstract. Founded by Romans, Vimercate had an important geographical position in Lombardy. Layers of history are visible throughout the town, yet there is the inconsistency of historical data and neglect of the historical centre in the past decades. Only recently researchers and professors from Politecnico di Milano pointed out the importance of studying layers of history in the built environment. In the past years, Vimercate was used as an example for students from masters and bachelor courses in preservation studios. This is where the idea for the master’s thesis was developed which focuses on the collection, digitalisation and investigation of primary historical cartography and then other historical documents. Historical cartography can offer extensive knowledge about the past of this town and it is one of the main sources of information. For the creation of the project was selected free and open-source software QGIS where the selected historical maps were vectorised, compared and investigated. A new understanding of the development of the city was studied and some discoveries appeared. Effective application of the thesis project started in the courses of Architectural preservation studio at Politecnico di Milano. This was followed by the interest of citizens in the project who were actively participated in the creation of the same. Other stakeholders showed interest in involving in future developments. The thesis found its application in didactic activities of students and pupils.
Highlights
Vimercate is in the province Monza and Brianza, in the region Lombardy and still maintains some features of the ancient Roman village in the disposition of the urban plot
The thesis is oriented to the Historical Geographic Information System (HGIS) that can store, analyse and display data of the historical geographies and track changes through time
The thesis was presented to the officials from the MUST Museum in Vimercate and to the Municipality of Vimercate, as an idea of the interactive learning platform, which will connect sides at the institutional level (i.e. Politecnico di Milano with Municipality of Vimercate) and Participation of the local community was tremendous, and they greatly contributed to this project
Summary
Vimercate is in the province Monza and Brianza, in the region Lombardy and still maintains some features of the ancient Roman village in the disposition of the urban plot. The ancient historiography does not report any data, the archaeological discoveries let us hypnotize that the urban development of the city happened mainly around the I century BC as a Roman colony incorporated in Mediolanum (Vergani 1994). Town’s evolution is undoubtedly related to the significant religious administrative and commercial functions carried out in past centuries, especially in the Middle Ages when in 1079 AD it passed from vicus to burgus (Venturelli and Vergani 1998; Dossi and Crippa 1992). Vimercate is a city with fruitful history but there is a lack of data and inconsistency of understanding what happened through the time with the city. One of the biggest drivers in developing awareness and interest in the history of Vimercate is Politecnico di Milano (Della Torre, Moioli, and Cantini 2018). Involving other stakeholders as administration and citizens will engirdle the purpose of the project
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