The nineteenth century was the era of great explorations , especially regarding the African continent. The popular imagination of the time was nourished by the exploits of men conquering unknown immensities , wearing colonial helmets and holding a map, a sextant or a rifle in their hands. It was an evocative, but stereotypical portrait. The explorers were many and very different from each other . Some were the simple expression of their era and the cultural and political environment in which they were born and raised. They carried out a very specific function: informing their contemporaries and their country's governments about the state of the world, looking for resources, founding colonies. At the same time, however, many explorers were restless men, uncomfortable if not in total rupture with the societies from which they came. In unknown lands, men of this type sought not only fame and riches, but the possibility of giving meaning to their existence.
Cinema and publishing have delivered an almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon reading of that epic, centered on the names of Livingstone, Stanley, Burton, Speke. Little has always been said about the Italian explorers, who were many and important.
Marco Valle in the volume "Viaggiatori extraordinary" (Neri Pozza, 2024, pp. 320, also e-book) set out on the trail of that adventurous community of our compatriots who traveled through the wildest and most unexplored areas of the five continents . He reconstructed events that are out of the ordinary, but largely forgotten.
We asked Marco Valle why there was so much oblivion:
«Over the years, due to a strange form of reluctance mixed with provincialism, we have preferred to settle into the Anglo-American narrative on the great explorations, forgetting the important contribution offered by the Italian 'adventurous community' which from the eighteenth century onwards ventured into the most unknown areas and mysteries of the globe. A shame, as well as an error of perspective since we find exceptional and surprising stories and characters."
Can you give us some names?
«We can start from Ippolito Desideri who arrived in Tibet or from Giacomo Beltrami who arrived at the sources of the Mississippi; from Giovanni Belzoni, 'father' of modern Egyptology, from Orazio Antinori and Carlo Piaggia in Africa, from Luigi Amedeo of Savoy to Odoardo Beccari in Borneo, Giacomo Bove in Patagonia, Pietro Savorgnan di Brazzà in Congo, Guglielmo Massaja and Vittorio Bottego in Abyssinia, Giovanni Miami on the Nile, Giovan Battista Cerruti in Malaysia. And again in the twentieth century Alberto de Agostini in Patagonia, Raimondo Franchetti in Dancalia, Giuseppe Tucci in Asia and Ardito Desio in the Sahara. Their stories and adventures are all in my book."
Was there something that distinguished our explorers from those of the great colonial powers, France and England first and foremost?
«In all my protagonists we notice an ability to approach sidereally different peoples and cultures in an original and respectful way. Unlike their English or French colleagues, our 'extraordinary travellers' abandoned, with different sensibilities and ways, the initial positivist and Eurocentric gaze to acquire a new and different awareness of the world and its people. Considering the contexts of the time, this is not a given at all."
Which of the many stories you told in the book struck you the most? Is there a character you are particularly attached to?
«The choice is difficult. I was certainly struck by the epic Pietro Savorgnan of Brazza in Congo. This courageous and idealistic Friulian took away, by donating it to France, part of the enormous region from the rapacity of King Leopold of Belgium in the name of a 'colonialism of civilisation'; a romantic dream that Paris however did not appreciate. Called back to Europe, a tragic and opaque end awaited him. But the Africans did not forget him. Even today, a unique case for the post-colonial era, the capital of the former French Congo proudly bears his name: Brazzaville."
Does Italy still produce great explorers?
«The new frontiers of Italian exploration are the South Pole and space. Since 1985, the CNR has annually organized large-scale study and research missions to the Antarctic starting from the Zucchelli base and the Italian-French Concordia centre. Then there are the stars with our magnificent astronauts: 'AstroSamantha' Cristoforetti and her adventure companions. Thanks to them the space saga is also tricolor."