Sense of Place and National Identity in Late−nineteenth Century Italian Navy Travel Writing

Reunified in 1861, Italy appeared on the international scene almost ready to rush into the scramble for the last outposts of the world not yet explored or conquered by other nations. Along the path that constructed her colonial discourse, considered as the totality of practices and representations supporting the birth and affirmation of Italian colonialism, particularly interesting are some diaries and travel notes written by Navy mariners, busy in oceanic campaigns and circumnavigations in the twenty years preceding the first African settlement. Indeed, these texts show us the dialectical intercourse between the marvel of new encounters and its domestication through the memory of personal and socio−cultural experiences, and, in particular, how the Italian mental attitude on men and lands of the time was influenced by an introspective and affective projection bound to preexisting visions of territory and agriculture. Moreover, the comparison of specific senses of places with the yet to be defined space and the men who inhabit it partakes to the process of selection and emphasis of the Italian national traits, delineating a sense of place of the entire Italian Nation.