Disegni, progetti e rilievi delle “opere d’arte” dell’architettura ferroviaria italiana: una preziosa testimonianza del processo di trasformazione del territorio e del paesaggio.

railways. To name a few: the stations, travelers buildings, workshops, garages, viaducts, bridges and tunnels, all products required to operate the railway network, whose design has also required the contribution of the highest professionalism of architects and engineers. A presence that has influenced and directed the transformation of urban planning and architecture of the last two centuries of Italian cities, which gave rise to great economic and political interests, and has set up a wide field for testing and design of new manufacturing technologies. Since the nineteenth century, the rail infrastructure have accompanied and marked the great historical events of the peninsula (the Unification of Italy, the world wars, Fascism, etc.) with works that can be defined relevant according to several points of view (formal, artistic, technological, economic, etc.), and whose presence has affected both the big cities (Turin, Milan, Venice, Naples, etc.) that the smaller towns, with the same meaning and interest. In this regard, the archives of the Ministry of Transport provide a wealth of documentation made of drawings, prints, maps and chorographies of many of the main routes and railway stations. We are talking about material of great documentary value, that shows the genesis and dynamics of architectural transformations, urban and regional, due to railway construction work in general and becomes fundamental for the understanding of the past and the planning of the future. This paper considers some examples of these works, the most significant according to a historical and architectural point of view, telling through drawings an era of rapid evolution of the Italian landscape.