This contribution offers a memory of my dear friend Renato De
Fusco concerning a scientific issue hinged in my field of interest
pertaining to the heritage of urban iconography and linked to the
successful journal «Op. cit.». It is my paper published in issue 61
(1984). It is a consideration that relates to one of his most important contributions to the knowledge, decoding and dissemination
of the history of architecture, which extends to that of the city and
the landscape, as a mirror of the theories and events of the time
in which the work was carried out. I like to think that urban iconography can be considered a paradigm of urban historiography, as a synthetic image of the history of the city, initially in an
ideological manner, then artistic as a portrait, then scientific as a
survey and finally economic to satisfy administrative and governmental instances, before returning to being a work of art in the
season of art photography.
