ABSTRACT
Part One of this volume examines the writings of the very first Italians who travelled to Australia between 1770 and 1899. As I have anticipated in the introductory historical background, Italy did not complete unification until 1870 and even after that, it continued to be largely fragmented. The country’s indefinite social and economic situation offers an explanation for the types of travellers featuring in Chapters 1 and 2: sailors, missionaries, goldseekers, naturalists and migrants. These different personalities produced a variety of texts, ranging from scientific records to more personal narratives. Despite their heterogeneity, they all show, in specific ways, the intricacies surrounding their attempted display of authority in the new continent. Such attempt emerged as dynamic and ambitious over the course of the long nineteenth century, encompassing the fields of exploration, religion and the sciences, yet was confronted by Anglo-Australian predominance on all fronts. James Matra’s contribution to one of the first written descriptions of Australia and his intrusion in British colonial schemes placed him at the front line of the impact against British colonialism in Australia. In the rest of the chapter, I discuss how Alessandro Malaspina and Rosendo Salvado further challenged British supremacy with specifically Italian literary and religious elements.
