Fonti galantiane, uno strumento per la conoscenza della storia ambientale in età moderna nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia

Abstract

The paper aims to examine the main environmental-territorial issues of the reformist program of the famous Molise reformer Giuseppe Maria Galanti (1743-1806) through his unpublished writings preserved in the Galanti Archive of Santa Croce del Sannio. Galanti reinterprets the relationship between culture and territory in the light of a renewed historical-geographical, statistical and economic interest that privileges the complex framework of nature and the care of geographical contexts. Therefore, attention emerges to an economically sustainable perspective in view of a decisive development of the territory desirable, according to the famous Molise reformer, within the framework of a complex reformist project dedicated to the entire southern territory. The aim was therefore to highlight a fundamental aspect of Galanti's cognitive process: the territory and nature considered as a book and palimpsest of History. And it is in this context that the work of the famous reformer is fully inserted.