Agrarian Land Register

AGRARIAN LAND REGISTER. - It is the inventory of landed property for fiscal and civil purposes. Its usefulness was recognized by the Chaldeans in 4000 B.C., the Chinese in 2205 B.C., the Pharaohs, the Greece of Solon, the Romans, the communes and the churches in the medieval age, and the states of the Renaissance and of modern times. There were descriptive and geometric cadastres (without or with topographic surveys), probative or non-probative (with or without the legal proof of ownership). The first Italian cadastre of which there is record is that of Pisa of 1162, and the oldest one that has come down to us is that of the commune of Chieri of 1253. The Church of Novara had a capitular cadastre with the consignationes of ecclesiastical properties ordered by Bishop Amidano in 1347.

Beginning in the 17th century the various Italian states compiled a cadastre of their own which then, with the Kingdom of Italy and with the law of 1 March 1886, disappeared, replaced by a single geometric parcel-based cadastre such as is in force today. Of the modern cadastres, the oldest is the geometric one of the Roman countryside, called the Chigi or Alexandrine cadastre, begun at the wish of Pope Alexander VII in 1660. In 1777 Pius VI, by edict of 15 December, ordered the formation of a new cadastre (completed in 1781) called the piano cadastre, and Pius VII in 1801, to revive the public finances, had the doziale cadastre compiled, which was the last descriptive pontifical cadastre. Pius VII in fact, by "motu proprio" of 6 July 1816, ordered the preparation of a new geometric parcel-based cadastre which, completed in 1833, went into effect in 1835 under Gregory XVI, hence the name Gregorian cadastre, whose topographic structure, notwithstanding revisions and updates, is still in force today for those countries where the Italian one does not yet exist. The Gregorian cadastre took as its unit of area the tavola of 1000 sq. m., and the maps were surveyed with the plane table on the scale of 1:2000. The tariff expressing the annual income yielded by a tavola of land of different cultivation (taking into account the different degree of fertility) was determined according to the analytical method of appraisal. Among the old cadastres, the one that comes closest to the modern geometric parcel-based cadastres is the Milanese censo; those of the other Italian regions, by contrast, were not so perfect.

Giovanni Donna