ABSTRACT

A wide range of texts for children from the late nineteenth century through the First World War deploy various kinds of mapping strategies. Some books reproduce visual images of maps as illustrations or frontispieces, others chart a protagonist's progress through various parts of Italy or beyond, and others employ cartographic vocabulary. In addition to establishing and naturalizing borders for the subject and the nation, Italian texts plot a necessary and natural progression for their readers. Father Antonio Stoppani offered one of the first post-unification texts that aimed to instruct young Italians in their nation's geography. Children's books mapped Italy and its citizens not only through producing verbal and visual images of the peninsula itself, but also through generating representations of Italy's "other". In 1889, Italy sought to establish a protectorate over Ethiopia through the bilingual Treaty of Uccialli with Emperor Menelik II.