Carte di Viaggio. Studi di Lingua e Letteratura Italiana. 1. 2008

The image of the text as a journey is a recurring motif in the literature of all eras. Curtius has reconstructed the fortunes of the nautical metaphor in particular, from the poets and Latin prose writers to Dante in the Convivio and the Commedia. Connected to this long tradition are the opening verses of the last canto of Orlando Furioso, in which Ariosto embellishes the theme of this comparison with his reference to the carta, which is at the same time the writer's page and the navigator's map. The polysemy of the word carta is also alluded to in the title of this journal, dedicated to the relationship between writing and the journey in the context of Italian culture. By incorporating a traditional image, the title underlines the figurative potential, evocative resonance, and fertile creative and critical implications of the concept of the viaggio. To follow the many endless, winding itineraries of the motif of the journey in the mare magnum of Italian linguistic and literary history - from Marco Polo's Milione to Calvino's Città invisibili - is an undertaking on which no navigator, however expert, would dare embark without a secure point of reference. Our lodestar is text understood in a broader sense: whether high literature or simple documentation, the text itself will be the end of the research, as well as the means of sustaining, verifying or perfecting an argument. With the aid of this indispensable compass, we seek coordinates to orient ourselves on the tangled paths of literary geography, where a journey may take the shape of cognitive experience or aimless wandering, the search for a spiritual center or evasion of a rejected identity. On a contiguous plan, it explores the role that several fundamental figures of wanderers (merchant, preacher, traveller) have had in our country, since time immemorial a crossroads for different peoples, cultures and languages.