The 19. Century cadastres as a source for historical micro-toponymy of the Veneto region : Limits and potentialities of a historical GIS

This paper examines the cadastre produced in the 19th century in the Venetian territory, as a source for historical toponymy. After the fall of the Venice Republic, the Napoleonic and Austrian administrations produce the first modern, systematic cadastral survey in the Venetian provinces. Completed over about 40 years (1807-1852), this cadastre consists of thousands of documents that are now preserved in the State Archives in Venice. This paper focuses on the maps and the registers compiled in the first phase (1807-1818), containing a huge quantity of micro-toponyms collected directly in the field by the cadastre surveyors. Toponyms recorded in the cadastre have been mapped, using some historical GIS geodatabases for three study areas in the Veneto region. Some of these data will be examined in detail, and compared both with the official toponymy and with some recent local toponymic maps. This comparison confirms the great importance of the 19th century cadastres as a geo-historical source for the Veneto region, highlighting limitations and potentialities in the scientific, economic and social fields.