Iconografia, rilievo e progetto nella mappa della città. L'immagine di Reggio Calabria dal Seicento ai giorni nostri.

According to legend, Reggio Calabria was founded in 2000 BC. Destroyed several times by invasions and earthquakes that took place over the centuries, its appearance has completely changed during the time. Unfortunately, the first images by which we can appreciate the urban structure date back only to the early seventeenth century. However, maps play an essential role in reconstructing the image of the city. Before getting to the current open-source satellite pictures, we can recreate the look of the city by using some maps including the bird's eye view of Pacichelli in his Del Regno di Napoli in Prospettiva, the late eighteenth century by Vincenzo Tirone, the late nineteenth century of the Majolo and the early twentieth century of the Baratta plan views. Whether on one hand the analysis of the historical plans allows us reconstructing the evolution over the centuries of the urban layout of Reggio Calabria, on the other, nowadays the use of less conventional languages of maps representation are proposed and studied by showing themselves as systems for the diffusion of culture and enhancement of the architectural heritage of the city. In particular, two different types of graphic icons are proposed as an in-depth analysis of the already mentioned topic: on one hand the use of the graph, as a conceptual map for the promotion of tourist routes and on the other the use of multimedia maps, by the introduction of the comics grid, for the enhancement of the architectural heritage and knowledge of the historic center. The city of Reggio Calabria is therefore presented as a pretext object in proposing an alternative system to the canonical zenith representation of space perceived 'as it is'. The introduction of topological geometry and the acknowledgement of comics as the ninth art allow the opportunity to offer conceptual and multimedia maps in which the superimposition of different media can give a more immediate reading of the places and a greater number of data accessible by the user. Therefore, the user becomes not only an active player in choosing the information useful for oneself (graphed by using specific symbols shown on the maps), but also plays a part of an interactive system thanks to the possibility of choosing the information he is interested in accessing.