Disegni di "rilievo" a Messina tra il XIX e il XX secolo

The interest in the "correct" representation of ancient buildings, as a practice put in place by architects for self-educational purposes or for military or civil needs, finds its temporal collocation in quite distant times if, for example, rejerence is made to activities of the Egyptian ''geometri" or the Latin ''gromatici". The availabiliry of new measurement tools will certainly be advantageous in the intensification of architectural and urban surveying campaigns which, over the centuries, have had the aim of restoring the graphics drawings and therefore deplying the most significant architectural evidence of the past. This has produced impressive iconographic apparatuses becoming then of strategic importance mainly in the case of those monuments arrived in the contemporary epoch modified, incomplete or even never completed. The analysis of this type of documents also allows, in addition to graphically restore the monument, to investigate other aspects related to the period in which the survey is produced, for example with regard to the techniques or instruments used, the graphic codes or the formation of authors. In the present contribution, by way of example, we will consider some surveys, whose execution occurred in Messina, with different purposes, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Raimondo D'Aronco and Francesco Valenti. The observation and analysis of these iconographic apparatuses could allow, in some of the cases taken into consideration, to retrace the whole history of the factory or any of its substantial phases, giving confirmation or adding further elements of knwoledge with respect to the current ones. In the light of the results obtained, the drawing would confirm its connective and central character with respect to the issues of protection of cultural heritage and design practice in the context of restoration.