A Holistic Machine: Engineers and Surveyors in the Making of Environmental Expertise in Early Modern Italy

This article examines how engineers and surveyors transformed the management of the Po Valley environment between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Drawing on archival registers, hydraulic reports, and technical manuals from the State of Milan, it argues that these professionals did not simply apply scientific knowledge to nature. Through practices of measurement, mapping, classification, and repair, they made water, woodlands, and agricultural land into governable resources. Engineers mediated conflicts over irrigation, assessed landed property, standardized environmental records, and linked hydraulic infrastructures to broader economic and political goals. Their work connected mathematics, mechanics, and natural knowledge to the everyday administration of one of Europe's most intensely managed agroecosystems. By foregrounding technical practice rather than scientific theory alone, the article shows how environmental governance emerged through routine acts of observation, calculation, and intervention.