Sea-shaped Identities. Italians and Others in Late Nineteenth-century Italian Navy Travel Literature: a Case Study

During the second half of the 19th century, shortly after the reunification of Italy, began a period of
Italian presence on the international seas. During
these voyages Italian naval officers had the chance
to come into contact directly and for the first time
with the most diverse populations. Their travel notes
and diaries can be considered as travel narratives
influenced by the new Italian navalism, which was
focused on building a strong and powerful image of
the Navy on the seas and of Italy as a civilised nation.
The paper, focusing on a re-reading of the travel
notes on the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, analyses
how Italian Navy officers used to picture ‘Others’ as
a means of building a positive self-image of a nation
at the top scale of the civilisation.