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Giacomo Bonan

Università degli Studi di Torino, Dipartimento di Studi Storici, Faculty Member

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Papers by Giacomo Bonan

Tra storia idraulica e scienza idraulica: Camillo Vacani e lo studio delle acque venete

Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 2024

Between Hydraulic History and Hydraulic Science. Camillo Vacani and the Study of Venetian Waters ... more Between Hydraulic History and Hydraulic Science. Camillo Vacani and the Study of Venetian Waters This essay examines the role of history in the nineteenth-century hydraulic debate through the analysis of the volume Della laguna di Venezia e dei fiumi nelle attigue provincie (On the lagoon of Venice and of the rivers in the contiguous provinces), written by the engineer Camillo Vacani in 1829 and published posthumously in 1867. Vacani's work contains detailed information on the hydraulic system of the region and the technical characteristics of the main hydraulic projects. However, its predominant part is of a historical nature and shows the interdependence between the evolution of the hydraulic network and the transformations of the political context from the mid-fifth century up to the early nineteenth century. Through the analysis and contextualization of this text, it is possible to highlight a topic that has been relatively underexplored so far: the role of history in the nineteenth-century hydraulic debate.

«Contro l’azione struggitrice del tempo». Progetti di ripristino dell’acquedotto Claudio

Archivio storico italiano, 2023

Anno CLXXXI (2023) N. 678-Disp. IV (ottobre-dicembre) segue nella 3 a pagina di copertina Memorie... more

Hydraulic Engineers and Antiquarians: Political Use of the Past in Nineteenth-Century Venice

Technology and Culture, 2023

The article analyzes the relationship between hydraulics and history in the nineteenth century, o... more The article analyzes the relationship between hydraulics and history in the nineteenth century, often described as a period when the humanities and the sciences split into "two separate cultures." Venice, amphibious city par excellence, is a good starting point for exploring the use of history in water management debates. In the early nineteenth century, humanists and hydraulic engineers came together through multiple disciplinary approaches and in constant confrontation with the Republic of Venice's water policies. In the following decades, while making extensive use of history, these engineers realized and emphasized the diversity of both disciplines' methodologies. This evolution – seen through the writings of renowned hydraulic engineer at the time Pietro Paleocapa – illustrates how history was no longer a source of empirical knowledge but came to be used for rhetorical and political purposes.

“Prefazione”. In D. Gazzi, Dai beni comuni alla proprietà privata. La diffusione degli usurpi nel XIX secolo. Il caso di San Gregorio nelle Alpi, V–VIII, Feltre: Agorà, 2023

Pionieri nella frontiera del legname? I commercianti di legname in Italia settentrionale durante l’industrializzazione

Imprese e storia, 2022

The paper analyses the transformation of the timber trade for the Northern Italian market during ... more The paper analyses the transformation of the timber trade for the Northern Italian market during industrialization, the impact of this transformation on two family firms that were operating in this sector, and the way through which these actors faced-and were able to actively influence-such changes.

Presentazione Imprese e ambiente nella storia italiana: una prospettiva di lungo periodo

by Giacomo Bonan and Matteo Di Tullio

Imprese e storia, 2022

Non c'è impresa di una qualche importanza che oggi possa del tutto ignorare il vincolo della sost... more Non c'è impresa di una qualche importanza che oggi possa del tutto ignorare il vincolo della sostenibilità ambientale o che non vi faccia riferimento anche solo per ragioni di marketing. Del resto, la centralità assunta nel dibattito pubblico di temi come il cambiamento climatico, la relazione tra prelievo di nuove materie prime e la rigenerazione dei rifiuti e, più in generale, il crescente impatto antropico sul pianeta ha reso quella ambientale una questione dalla quale nessuno sembra potersi esimere. Negli ultimi decenni, in effetti, abbiamo assistito ad un vero e proprio environmental turn, che ha reso l'attuale crisi ecologica un tema molto discusso, che si è imposto, almeno all'apparenza, al vertice dell'agenda politica dei principali Paesi del globo, interessando anche la ricerca scientifica e toccando trasversalmente un po' tutte le discipline, compresi gli studi storici. L'attenzione della storiografia alle relazioni tra società umane e ambiente non ha origine con la recente rilevanza del tema, bensì ha una tradizione più remota, che può essere fatta risalire almeno alla scuola delle Annales (Locher, Quenet, 2009; Ingold, 2011), passando per l'approccio topografico promosso dalla English Local History e più in generale dall'esperienza delle varie storie agrarie europee 1. Nel contesto della storia economica e agraria, fin dagli anni '50 e '80 del Novecento, quando gli studi si sono fatti più intensi, l'interesse per l'ambiente ha toccato vari ambiti della ricerca, dalla storia del paesaggio (Sereni, 1961; Agnoletti, 2013) a quella dell'energia (Caracciolo, Morelli,

Montagne condivise, montagne contestate : le risorse d'uso collettivo delle Alpi orientali (secoli XVI-XIX)

by Claudio Lorenzini and Giacomo Bonan

Im östlichen Alpenraum waren Wälder und gemeinschaftlich genutztes Weideland die wichtigsten natü... more Im östlichen Alpenraum waren Wälder und gemeinschaftlich genutztes Weideland die wichtigsten natürlichen Ressourcen, welche von verschiedenen Institutionen verwaltet wurden. Die Gemeinschaften hatten Anspruch auf Nutzungsrechte. Der Staat gewährte den Gemeinden zunächst die Nutzung und dann das Eigentum an den Gütern, ohne jedoch darauf zu verzichten, diese weiterhin zu pflegen und zu fördern. Ein dritter Aspekt betrifft die Vermarktung der daraus erzeugten Produkte. Durch die Untersuchung der Holzlieferkette ist es möglich, die Beziehungen zwischen Kaufleuten, Gemeinden und dem Staat in einem für die Alpenwirtschaft grundlegenden Sektor zu rekonstruieren.

Common Forest, Private Timber: Managing the Commons in the Italian Alps

by Giacomo Bonan and Claudio Lorenzini

The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2021

Developments in the recent historiography stress the importance of analyzing the unequal distribu... more Developments in the recent historiography stress the importance of analyzing the unequal distribution of profits derived from the management of common lands. This article takes a step forward in solving a problem that many of these studies raise but do not sufficiently explain, examining not only who received these profits but also who generated them. 1 The historiographical debate about the commons is heated, as it is in the literature of other disciplines. Nonetheless, Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons," which appeared a half-century ago, remains an essential, if controversial, reference. Although Hardin was concerned with environmental problems caused by global overpopulation, the academic debate triggered by his work centered on just one of his examples-a pasture open to all without restriction, where every shepherd tried to add as many animals as possible to his flock, unaware that the eventual cumulative effect of this "rational" strategy would be the over-exploitation of the pasture and its destruction. In Hardin's view, common resources were inevitably destined to this fate. In the following decades, several studies rebutted the validity of Hardin's paradigm, illustrating in detail the dynamics at play in the utilization of commons and the strategies involved in their management. A series of historical

Montagne condivise, montagne contestate. Le risorse d’uso collettivo delle Alpi orientali (secoli XVI-XIX)

by Claudio Lorenzini and Giacomo Bonan

Histoire des Alpes/Storia delle Alpi/Geschichte der Alpen, 2019

Im östlichen Alpenraum waren Wälder und gemeinschaftlich genutztes Weideland die wichtigsten natü... more Im östlichen Alpenraum waren Wälder und gemeinschaftlich genutztes Weideland die wichtigsten natürlichen Ressourcen, welche von verschiedenen Institutionen verwaltet wurden. Die Gemeinschaften hatten Anspruch auf Nutzungsrechte. Der Staat gewährte den Gemeinden zunächst die Nutzung und dann das Eigentum an den Gütern, ohne jedoch darauf zu verzichten, diese weiterhin zu pflegen und zu fördern. Ein dritter Aspekt betrifft die Vermarktung der daraus erzeugten Produkte. Durch die Untersuchung der Holzlieferkette ist es möglich, die Beziehungen zwischen Kaufleuten, Gemeinden und dem Staat in einem für die Alpenwirtschaft grundlegenden Sektor zu rekonstruieren.

Wolfgang Behringer, Tambora and the Year without a Summer (Review)

Aro, 2021

Il presente volume è la traduzione di uno studio originariamente pubblicato in lingua tedesca dal... more Il presente volume è la traduzione di uno studio originariamente pubblicato in lingua tedesca dallo storico Wolfang Behringer nel 2015 (Tambora und das Jahr ohne Sommer. Wie ein Vulkan die Welt in die Krise stürzte ). In questo lavoro, l'autore ritorna sui temi della storia del clima, con cui si era già confrontato in Storia culturale del clima. Dall'Era glaciale al Riscaldamento globale.

Storia e ambiente: «scambio ineguale e mercato storiografico»

Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento/Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient, 2020

This review article analyses the development of environmental history from its origins to its cur... more This review article analyses the development of environmental history from its origins to its current more relevant trends. In the process, it focuses on this evolution by analyzing the development of two dynamics of «unequal exchanges». The first exchange regards the one between historiographies and academic contexts of different states. The second one takes place between environmental history and other disciplines, both within the humanities and among the natural sciences.

Introduzione, Storia ambientale: nuovi approcci e prospettive di ricerca | Environmental History: New Approaches and Research Perspectives, Annali Isig 2020/2

by Katia Occhi, Giacomo Bonan, Vittorio Tigrino, and Christian Rohr

Annali dell'Istituto storico italo germanico, nr. 46/2, 2020

Questo numero degli «Annali/Jahrbuch» è dedicato a un filone di ricerca nuovo per l’Istituto Stor... more Questo numero degli «Annali/Jahrbuch» è dedicato a un filone di ricerca nuovo per l’Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico, quello della storia ambientale. ... La storia ambientale è uno dei campi di ricerca più dinamici dell’attuale panorama storiografico, anche grazie alla sua spiccata vocazione interdisciplinare. Per queste ragioni, è ormai impossibile proporre un quadro completo della disciplina all’interno di un singolo volume. I risultati che presentiamo qui pertanto hanno l’obiettivo di introdurre le lettrici e i lettori degli «Annali/Jahrbuch» ad alcuni possibili campi di ricerca della storia ambientale, mostrando la pluralità di temi, degli approcci e dei possibili dialoghi con altri filoni di studio.

An Alpine Energy Transition: The Piave River from Charcoal to “White Coal”

Environmental History, 2020

This article analyzes the environmental history of the Industrial Revolution by examining the evo... more This article analyzes the environmental history of the Industrial Revolution by examining the evolution of the usage and management of the waters of the Piave, a river stretching from the eastern Alps to the Venetian Plain. In the preindustrial period, the Piave played a fundamental role in defining the flows of raw materials and energy in the region, representing the main route for transporting timber-the most important resource of the time-from Alpine forests to lowland urban areas. The onset of industrialization, especially the development of a railway network, undermined both this role and the economic activities that had been based on the exploitation of Alpine forests. The subsequent rise of hydroelectricity transformed the Piave from a transport route to an energy source. This transformation caused, in a shift applicable to more than just the Italian case, a redefinition of the social and economic relationships between upland and lowland areas: after the energy transition, the Alpine region ceased to be a constituent part of an interdependent system and instead became a periphery to an urban core.

Modernizzazione e conflitti per l'uso delle acque nelle carte del Genio civile: il caso Piave-Santa Croce

Le Carte e la Storia, 2020

Le Carte e la Storia (ISSN 1123-5624) Fascicolo 1, giugno 2020 Ente di afferenza: Università di B... more Le Carte e la Storia (ISSN 1123-5624) Fascicolo 1, giugno 2020 Ente di afferenza: Università di Bologna (unibo) Copyright c by Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna. Tutti i diritti sono riservati. Per altre informazioni si veda https://www.rivisteweb.it Licenza d'uso L'articoloè messo a disposizione dell'utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente privato e personale, senza scopo di lucro e senza fini direttamente o indirettamente commerciali. Salvo quanto espressamente previsto dalla licenza d'uso Rivisteweb,è fatto divieto di riprodurre, trasmettere, distribuire o altrimenti utilizzare l'articolo, per qualsiasi scopo o fine. Tutti i diritti sono riservati.

L'ambiente tra storia, scienza e politica

Passato e presente, 2020

Temi e problemi di storia forestale nella montagna veneta dell'Ottocento, in «Ateneo Veneto», 17/II (2018), pp. 127-143

Ateneo Veneto, 2018

Questo saggio analizza alcuni temi relativi alla storia forestale del Veneto ottocentesco. Parten... more Questo saggio analizza alcuni temi relativi alla storia forestale del Veneto ottocentesco. Partendo da una ricerca da poco conclusa dall'autore e focalizzata sull'area del Cadore (alto bacino del fiume Piave), il saggio esamina le principali questioni di cui si è occupata la storiografia in materia e individua alcuni temi ancora non adeguatamente approfonditi: uno studio sui networks e gli operatori commerciali attivi nella filiera del legno che permetta di estendere anche all'Ottocento le conoscenze acquisite per l'epoca veneziana; un’analisi della pubblicistica di argomento forestale che tenga conto anche delle conseguenze climatiche e sanitarie spesso associate al diboscamento negli scritti dell'epoca; infine, una ricerca sull'evoluzione del commercio del legname che seguì all’avvento del trasporto ferroviario e sull’impatto di questo processo nei territori alpini maggiormente coinvolti nel settore forestale.

Natural Time and Bureaucratic Time: State Building, Forests and Environmental Conflicts in the 1800s, in «Environment and History» 25/III (2019), pp. 421-450

Historians traditionally consider the Napoleonic period a key point in the process of state centr... more Historians traditionally consider the Napoleonic period a key point in the process of state centralisation in most of continental Europe. This is certainly true of the legislative and administrative transformations overseen by state authorities during that epoch. However, there is still much to learn about the consequences of these changes on the ground, especially in peripheral regions. In this respect, an environmental history approach can provide new perspectives on the growing presence of state authorities in the management of environmental resources and associated struggles in rural areas. In this article, I analyse the reactions of some alpine communities to state intervention in the years following the implementation of Napoleonic reforms. The lens through which these interactions are observed is that of valorisation of forest resources, which were the economic lynchpin of alpine communities and, at the same time, a strategic issue for state authorities.

Riflessi sull'acqua. Ricerca storica e biografie fluviali, in «Contemporanea», 22/II (2019), pp. 317-328

This article examines a recent historiographical trend that has focused on rivers, and looks at i... more This article examines a recent historiographical trend that has focused on rivers, and looks at its evolution in relation to the broader field of environmental history. The studies produced in recent decades have shared many characteristics: the periodization, the analytical approach, and the regions that have been focused on. Moreover, many of these works have used rivers and their drainage basins as a viewpoint through which to explore the socio-economic dynamics present during the period of modernisation. This has been carried out in relation both to economic modernisation, focusing on the role of rivers in the industrialisation process and on how this process has transformed the rivers, and to political modernisation, analysing the symbolic and practical use of rivers in the state and nation building process.

Confronting Hardin. Trends and approaches to the commons in historiography, in «Theoretical Inquiries in Law», 19/II (2018), pp. 617-632

This Article analyses both the role of historiography in Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons (196... more This Article analyses both the role of historiography in Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons (1968) and his paper's impact on historiographical debates of the last five decades. Concerning the role of historiography in Hardin's argument, the 'tragedy of the commons' itself derived from a pamphlet written by a nineteenth century supporter of English enclosures, who proposed a variant of Malthus' theory. If Hardin inevitably dealt with previous historical interpretations of the commons, the reverberations aroused by his paper have strongly influenced subsequent historical research on this subject. It is possible to group the historiographical production of the last decades concerning the commons into three main lines of research. The first line has developed in the field of economic history and has been influenced by Elinor Ostrom's principles for long-enduring institutions that efficaciously manage commons. The second line has focused on the conflicts caused by exogenous interferences in the management of common land, such as state or market intervention, and their social and environmental consequences. The third line has devoted attention to the role of common lands in the internal dynamics of the local communities and the conflicts over their use at the local level. The conclusion of this Article focuses on the role of Hardin's legacy in the current debate on the global environmental crisis.

Gli storici e l’Antropocene: narrazioni, periodizzazioni, dibattiti, in «Passato e Presente», 104 (2018), pp. 129-143

Historians and the Anthropocene: narratives, periodizations, debates. Since its introduction in 2... more Historians and the Anthropocene: narratives, periodizations, debates. Since its introduction in 2000, the concept of " Anthropocene " has become a trending topic debated in various disciplines, including history. Starting from the ideas recently advanced on the topic by Amitav Ghosh, this article explores the main debates and narratives around the Anthropocene, both in general and with a focus on the historical approaches. There are at least three methodological challenges proposed to historians by the Anthropocene debate: that of the relationship with other disciplines (especially earth system sciences); that of the scales and subjects of analysis; and that of the forms through which reflecting upon this matter.