A man stands in front of a door and looks the observer directly and intensely in the eyes. Under a tight-fitting cap, long dark hair and a beard can be seen framing his serious-looking face. He wears several layers of clothing under a dark coat, jewellery around his neck and several implements typical of his profession or, in other words, of the image he is supposed to give: a large leather bag, a vessel made of half a sea coconut from the Seychelles or coco-de-mer with a carrying chain, a curved signalling horn whose tip with its eye represents the face of a fish with its mouth wide open.   A postcard from Istanbul from the early 20th century shows this motif (Fig. 1). Its content is explained and categorised as briefly as possible by a legend in French in the bottom right-hand corner: “Derviche”. At the bottom left, the number 8 indicates that this image is part of a series of pictures. The reverse of this card does not reveal much more: apart from lines to mark the demarcation [...]

The gaze ranges over the territory of the three valleys of western Piedmont, now known as ‘Waldensian’ – because of the centuries-long presence of the Protestant minority of the same name in the heart of the Alps – ensconced between high mountains overlooking a plain seen from a bird’s eye view, crossed by three main waterways, and dotted with villages and hamlets. Entitled Nieuwe Caerte der Valleyen in Piemont door de Waldensen and printed in 1691 in Amsterdam by Joachim Ottens, the map provides a detailed depiction of the territory of the Pellice and Germanasca-Chisone valleys, including the Po valley. (Fig. 1) Figure 1:  [Romeyn de Hooghe], Nieuwe Caerte der Valleyen in Piemont door de Waldensen, [1691]; H476mm, W572mm (Torre Pellice, Museo Valdese, property of Archivio della Tavola Valdese). © Courtesy Museo Valdese, Torre Pellice Both from the layout of the representation and most of the topographical information, the descriptive model for the map can be seen to be the Carta delle Tre Valli di Piemonte. Dated 1640, it is known only in a printed version signed by Valerio Grosso [...]