Alessandro Malaspina: An Italian/Spaniard at Port Jackson

Laura Olcelli

doi:10.5130/sj.v4i1.2784

PDF

Published: Oct 21, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/sj.v4i1.2784

Keywords:

Italian presence in Australia, Spanish expeditions, British colonialism, Port Jackson, voyage accounts

Laura Olcelli

University of Sydney

Abstract

Tuscan-born and Spanish-trained Alessandro Malaspina (1754-1810) captained the most significant scientific expedition ever launched by Spain in the years 1789-1794. After a survey of the Spanish colonies in America, he directed the course of the Descubierta towards the South Pacific and anchored at Port Jackson on 11 March 1793. In my essay I will scrutinize the New South Wales leg of Malaspina’s voyage account, comparing 'Viaje político-científico alrededor del mundo' (the original 1885 Spanish edition) and 'Journal of a Voyage by Alejandro Malaspina' (its 2001 English translation), and integrating them with the captain’s secret reports. The examination of Malaspina’s comments on the infant colony will simultaneously expose the Spanish attitude to early British colonialism in New South Wales, and help assess Malaspina’s complex role as the first explorer who reached Terra Australis from the Italian peninsula.

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2013): From the Ground Up: People and Places in Sydney's Past

Section

Articles

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Notice

Authors who submit articles to this journal from 31st March 2014 for publication, agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.

This material is published under an ‘Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License’ under the Creative Commons framework.

Author Biography

Laura Olcelli, University of Sydney

Laura Olcelli received a Bachelor’s Degree in Modern Languages and Cultures in September 2006, and a Master’s Degree in European and American Cultures in April 2009, both from Università degli Studi di Pavia, Italy. In August 2010 she was awarded a Master of Philosophy by research in English from The University of Sydney, with a thesis entitled 'Italy and the Italian Language: Female Self-Fashioning on the Grand Tour'. She has now begun her second year of Doctor of Philosophy at Sydney: she is researching Italo-Australian relations in travel literature in the nineteenth century.

Article Sidebar

Main Article Content

Abstract

Article Details

Laura Olcelli, University of Sydney