CATASTO AGRARIO. — This is the inventory of landed property for fiscal and civil purposes. Its usefulness was recognized by the Chaldeans 4000 years before Christ, the Chinese in 2205 B.C., the Pharaohs, the Greece of Solon, the Romans, the Communes and Churches in the medieval age, and the States of the Renaissance and modern times. There were descriptive and geometric cadastres (with or without topographical surveys), probative or non-probative (with or without legal proof of ownership). The first known Italian cadastre is that of Pisa from 1162, and the oldest still extant is that of the commune of Chieri from 1253. The Church of Novara had a capitular cadastre with the registration of ecclesiastical properties ordered by Bishop Amidano in 1347.
Beginning in the 17th century, the various Italian States compiled their own cadastres, which, with the Kingdom of Italy and the law of March 1, 1886, were replaced by a single geometric cadastre still in force today. Of the modern cadastres, the oldest is the geometric cadastre of the Roman countryside, known as the Chigi or Alexandrine cadastre, begun at the behest of Pope Alexander VII in 1660. In 1777, Pius VI, by edict of December 15, ordered the formation of a new cadastre (completed in 1781), known as the *catasto piano*, and Pius VII in 1801, to resolve public finances, had the *catasto dasiale* compiled, which was the last descriptive papal cadastre. Pius VII, in fact, by his own hand (*motu proprio*) of July 6, 1816, ordered the preparation of a new geometric cadastre, completed in 1833 and put into effect in 1835 under Gregory XVI, from which it takes the name *catasto gregoriano*. Its topographical structure, despite revisions and updates, is still in force today in those areas where the Italian cadastre does not yet exist. The *catasto gregoriano* took as its unit of surface area the *tavola* of 1,000 square meters, and the maps were surveyed with the *tavoletta pretoriana* at a scale of 1:2,000. The tariff expressing the annual income from a *tavola* of land under different cultivation (taking into account the varying degree of fertility) was determined according to the analytical method of appraisal. Among the old cadastres, the one closest to modern geometric cadastres by parcels is the Milanese census; those of the other Italian regions were less perfect.