La perdita del centro. Dall'antica alla nuova forma urbis di Quinzanello attraverso le mappe storiche

The “forma urbis” of Quinzanello, a village located on the Padana plain south of Brescia, highlights its development alongsite the main west-east direction road: here stands the parish church, the heart of the community and a "landmark" thanks to the high bell tower. The village evolution’s study is an unpublished contribution: in fact, some texts are published about the main town of Dello and only about some buildings of the village. An analysis that starts from the consultation of the archive sources is therefore necessary. We analyze two ancient maps: they are two Cabrei dated back to the second half of the XVIII century that are decisive to understand the landscape and its evolution. They show lines, colors, descriptions and keys that give us an image very valuable of the eastern territory of Quinzanello: infact it helps us to recognize the permanences but even more it demonstrates the "loss of the centre" that characterizes the nineteenth-century evolution of the village. The Napoleonic cadastre (1809) already shows that the process of relocation of the urban heart is started: the main new church is an attractive element of the new development. The ancient settlement where the political power (the castle), the religious power (the church) and the economic power (the mill) composed the forma urbis, lost its role of centre. This study demonstrates the relevance of the historical sources: they can be examined for informations and guidances in the research activity. In our research they were decisive for underlining an unusual urban dynamic, which makes this village of Quinzanello peculiar and interesting.