THE WORLD SEEN FROM MILAN. ILLUSTRATED TRAVEL JOURNALS IN THE 19th CENTURY

The essay analyses the visions of the world beyond Europe which appear in two key ‘popular’ illustrated journals published in Milan during the second half of the 19th century: "Il giro del mondo. Giornale di geografia, viaggi e costumi”, edited by Emilio Treves (1861-1887), and the "Giornale illustrato dei viaggi e delle avventure di terra e di mare", edited by Edoardo Sonzogno (1878). The accounts by intellectuals, historians, diplomats, explorers, geographers and scientists published in these periodicals allow us to reconstruct an important dimension in the circulation of knowledge to what was a fairly wide reading public. The long-lasting nature of these journals also means that we can understand the evolution of interest in geographical areas, as well as the issues which were addressed. They are, in turn, a reflection of the wider political and cultural climate, characterised by the development of the geographical societies, cultural colonialism and so on. Lastly, they offer a window onto the cultural politics of these initiatives which, by harking back to the experience of the illustrated journals which circulated in Europe from the third decade of the 19th century, in particular in France, exploited developments in print technology to enrich the stories with compelling images.