The Real Corpo di Stato Maggiore Generale fonds preserves the records produced by the first systematic campaign to survey, triangulate and map Sardinia, promoted by the Savoy monarchy in the first half of the nineteenth century.
The survey was intended to establish the island’s first modern cadastre and define the boundaries between state, municipal and private property. Surveying and describing the territory produced topographical maps, plans, index sheets, survey sheets, reports and minutes.
The fonds is divided into two main series:
- Mappe, containing the cartographic records relating to the municipalities surveyed;
- Processi verbali, containing the technical and administrative records relating to fieldwork, checks and boundary annotations.
When the Island Became Paper
Video storytelling dedicated to the “Real Corpo di Stato Maggiore Generale” fonds
The maps reveal Sardinia’s landholding and territorial structure before the transformations of the modern era. The fonds also contains records dating from after Italian unification concerning disputes over ademprivili land, the ancient common lands whose legal status remained controversial for many years. The collection is therefore of particular interest for the history of cartography, historical geography, territorial administration, civic uses and the island’s agrarian transformations.