Literature and Identity in Italian BaroqueTravel Writing
NathalieHester
Ashgate
ISBN:978-0-7546-6194-8
Présentation de l'éditeur
This first full-length study in English on seventeenth-century Italiantravel writing enriches our understanding of an unusually fertile period forItalian contributions to the genre. The intrinsic qualities of this literaturecan now be grasped in terms of the larger question of cultural identity in Italy. For Hester, thespecifically literary characteristics of Italian travel writing—including itshumanism or Petrarchism—highlight the classic eminence throughout Europe of a prestigious tradition inherentto Italy, one compensating then for the peninsula's lack of a national politicalidentity. Appeals to the cultural authority of that tradition represent a meansof addressing and overcoming anxieties about the Italian subject's diasporicstatus during the "Golden Age" of European global colonial expansion.Self-funded travelers Francesco Carletti, Pietro Della Valle, Francesco Belli,Francesco Negri, and Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri are the major authors studiedwho journeyed through Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and America.
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Table
Introduction:Italy and travel; What's Italian about Italian travel writing?; Performingbaroque travel: Pietro Della Valle's Viaggi; Travel writing and travel aswriting in Francesco Belli's Osservazioni nel viaggio; Out to the center inFrancesco Negri's Viaggio settentrionale; Repossessing travel writing: thecircumnavigating Moderno; Conclusion: Petrarch, the Euro, and the fate ofItalian travel literature; Bibliography; Index.
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L'auteur
NathalieHester is Associate Professor of Italian and French at the University of Oregon, USA.