Download Scarica il testo del saggio in formato PDF visualizzabile con Acrobat reader

• Transport historiography: features and sources
• What kind of transport history do we need?
• The origins and developments of transport history in Europe and America
• Transport History in Italy

Transport History in Italy

In Italy, perhaps more than in other European countries, most contributions to transport history came from the transport lovers, such as the railway enthusiasts, and not from the academic historians. The contributions concentrated on the history of railways, urban transports, motor cars, ships and aeroplanes. These books often represent very detailed technical analysis of vehicles, sometimes they regard the local history of single infrastructures, other times they are mainly photographic books with scant historical descriptions. However, in several essays the events and the anecdotes reported are of great interest also for the historians of economy and society.

Therefore, it would be unjust to refuse to admit the value of such works, which, among other things, often remember stories whose memory would be otherwise lost. Moreover the transport lovers frequently produced fascinating and useful historical synthesis about the different means of conveyance, although deprived of the methodological characteristics and the deep reflections of a historiographical research.

Instead, the Italian historiography never dedicated a good number of studies to the transport revolution, tightly linked to the industrial revolution, which was marked by innovations and changes in the field of production, but also by improvements in the locomotion, so to allow the diffusion of the same innovations. Therefore transport history still presents many unexplored subjects in the economic and social fields and in the policy of sector.

In Italy the scanty attention was due to the lack of a national shool of study in social history of technology in the contemporary age. Therefore the social history of transports and also communications never received enough emphasis. There is a scarcity of historiographical synthesis about the different means of conveyance, and a lack of studies about the transport networks at a local level, too. There are very few researches about transport enterprises, about transport workers, about the progress of public works of transport, about the relation between transport and administration, about the competition among the means of conveyance, about the effects of transport in some important social phenomena of the XXth century, such as commuterism and tourism.

Italian transport history suffers from a lack of studies of basis and the situation is made worse by the reduced availability of transport records, due to various reasons: from the loss or destruction of papers by firms not very attentive to their own historical memory, to the dispersion of records among seats even difficult to locate, to the scarce reordering of papers kept by the public archives, often not catalogued because rarely asked by sholars.

Some short notes concerning the Italian historiography of transports were written by A. Giuntini, Italian transport history: recent developments, in XIX and XX centuries transport history. Current trends and new problems, European University Institute, Working paper HEC No. 95/2, pp. 39-41.

Only about railways a historiography enough ample is present in Italy, as reported in A. Giuntini, Le ferrovie nella storiografia italiana, in “Italia Contemporanea”, n. 179, giugno 1990, pp. 325-332; A. Giuntini, Per una storia delle ferrovie italiane. Spunti di ricerca e note bibliografiche, in La rivoluzione dei trasporti in Italia nel XIX secolo. Temi e materiali sullo sviluppo delle ferrovie tra questione nazionale e storia regionale, a cura di G. Sabatini, L'Aquila, Amministrazione Provinciale, 1996, pp. 49-74.

Instead, the historiographical studies about the whole transport networks are very few, with the exception of some brief essays of general interpretation, as listed below. The Italian historiography about transport was started by F. Borlandi, Il problema delle comunicazioni nel secolo XVIII nei suoi rapporti col Risorgimento Italiano, Pavia, 1932, which considered the themes of the means of conveyance inside an important trend of the national historiography, the progress of Risorgimento. Borlandi's work remained without followers for a lot of years, until the more recent M. Di Gianfrancesco, La rivoluzione dei trasporti in Italia nell'Età Risorgimentale. L'unificazione del mercato e la crisi del Mezzogiorno, L'Aquila, Japadre, 1979. Some good essays, written by G. Are, B. Cori, L. Frangioni, A. Giuntini, L. Perini, G. Aliberti, were then collected in Piano generale dei trasporti. Segreteria tecnica. Progetto politica dei trasporti. Contributo alla memoria storica, Popolazione, tecnologia, commercio, politica e sistema dei trasporti nell'Italia contemporanea, Roma, Italtemi, 1984, a book not well known. Also a general work of economic history, in several volumes, dedicates an ample space to the themes of transport: Annali dell'economia italiana founded by E. Corbino. Each of these volumes – divided for decades – has a specific chapter about transport, rich of information and suggestions, edited by the same Corbino until volum V, then by G. Benedetti, L. Cicognani, C. Mochi; the chapters about transport are completed with a bibliography collected by N. Lamarca. In the same series F. Ogliari, Trasporti e comunicazioni, in Annali dell'Economia Italiana. Documentario I, Milano, Ipsoa, 1985, pp. 431-490.

Other brief essays about transport are included in general works, sometimes regarding the Italian history, otherwise extended to Europe and America: G. Pala – M. Pala, Lo sviluppo dei trasporti, in Lo sviluppo economico in Italia. Storia dell'economia italiana negli ultimi cento anni, edited by G. Fuà, vol. III, Milano, Angeli, 1978, pp. 345-387; L. Bortolotti, Viabilità e sistemi infrastrutturali, in Storia d'Italia. Annali, vol. VIII, Insediamenti e territorio, edited by C. De Seta, Torino, Einaudi, 1985, pp. 289-366; M. Del Viscovo, La rivoluzione dei trasporti, in La storia. I grandi problemi dal Medioevo all'età contemporanea, edited by N. Tranfaglia e M. Firpo, vol. VI, L'Età contemporanea, 1. I quadri generali, Torino, Utet, 1988, pp. 71-94. Such essays became more frequent in the last years, showing an increasing interest for transport: C. Pavese, I trasporti e le comunicazioni, in Lo sviluppo economico moderno dalla rivoluzione industriale alla crisi energetica (1750-1973), edited by P.A. Toninelli, Venezia, Marsilio, 1997, pp. 301-345; G. Fumi, Vie di comunicazione e trasporti, in Guida all'Italia contemporanea 1861-1997, vol. I, Risorse e strutture economiche, Milano, Garzanti, 1998, pp. 89-118, useful in particular for tables, maps and graphs at the pp. 119-163; A. Giuntini, Nascita, sviluppo e tracollo della rete infrastrutturale, in Storia d'Italia. Annali, vol. XV, L'industria, edited by F. Amatori, D. Bigazzi, R. Giannetti e L. Segreto, Torino, Einaudi, 1999, pp. 551-616; in Storia economica del mondo, edited by V. Castronovo, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1998-1999, we can find three essays about transport history in the last two centuries: in the volume 3, L'età della rivoluzione industriale, M. Merger, Una nuova rete di comunicazioni, pp. 473-495; in the volume 4, Tra espansione e recessione: dalla seconda metà dell'Ottocento agli anni Trenta, A. Giuntini, Il boom delle ferrovie, pp. 21-43 and C. Pavese, Dalla vela al vapore, dall'automobile all'aeroplano, pp. 45-63.

Finally the recent book by S. Maggi Politica ed economia dei trasporti (secoli XIX-XX). Una storia della modernizzazione italiana, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2001, which faces the Italian transport history with the opportune international comparisons, offering a panoramic view of the importance of transport for the modernization of contemporary society.

Some histories of transports not historiographical have been published, too. They are sometimes rich of interesting suggestions. First of all the monumental work by F. Ogliari, Storia dei trasporti italiani, divided in 35 volumes, which contain copious data and images. Some interesting data also in F. Ogliari – P. Muscolino, Centocinquant'anni di trasporti in Italia, Milano, Socini, 1989, and the next book by the same authors, Trasporti. Due secoli. XIX-XX, Milano, Coop. Libraria Iulm, 1995. Moreover we can remember M. Fabre, Storia dei trasporti terrestri, Milano, Mursia, 1965; F. Medri, Storia delle comunicazioni, trasporti terrestri, navigazione, aeronautica, telecomunicazioni internazionali, Genova, 1968; I trasporti in Italia: storia e futuro, edited by F. Dani, Pomezia, Sarin, 1987; Ministero dei Trasporti e della Navigazione. Direzione generale programmazione organizzazione e coordinamento, 30 anni di trasporti in Italia, Roma, Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1996.

About the themes of travel and means of conveyance, P. Prato – G. Trivero, Viaggio e modernità. L'immaginario del mezzo di trasporto tra '800 e '900, Napoli, Shakespeare & Company, 1989; and the numerous texts by A. Brilli, among which for example: Arte del viaggiare. Il viaggio materiale dal XVI al XIX secolo, Milano, Silvana, 1992; Quando viaggiare era un'arte. Il romanzo del Grand Tour, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1995.

Also two regional studies are worthy of attention: G. Guderzo, Vie e mezzi di comunicazione in Piemonte dal 1831 al 1861. I servizi di posta, Torino, Museo nazionale del Risorgimento, 1961; E. Corda, Ruote e rotabili 1830-1980. 150 anni di trasporti interni della Sardegna dalle diligenze alla pubblicizzazione delle autolinee, Sassari, Chiarella, 1981.