GAZZOLA, Gian Angelo

(Piacenza 1664 – ivi? 1736) diplomat, envoy to London of the Duke of Parma Francesco Farnese between April 1713 and October 1715, and then a second time in an unspecified period. His letters, unpublished, describe the English potitical system and some of the most prominent personalities of the time. See Gallini1997.

Bertola de Giorgi, Aurelio

(Rimini 1753 - Rimini 1798) poet and academic, fled to Hungary as a young man to join the military life. In 1783 he was in Vienna, where he got in contact with fellow citizen Giuseppe Garampi, who was the Nuncio (diplomatic representative of the Holy See) there.

He travelled in Switzerland (where he met the beloved poet Salomon Gessner) and in Germany; this experience is told in Viaggio sul Reno e ne' suoi contorni (1795). 

His writings contributed to the diffusion of Pre-Romantic themes in Italy. DBI

CAIMO, Norberto

(?-?). Not much is known about this Lombard cleric and traveller (see F. Meregalli, Storia delle relazioni letterarie tra Italia e Spagna, Venezia: Libreria Universitaria, 1962, vol. 3, p. 20). He visited England in 1756, as we can understand from the fact that he arrived in Portsmouth on the same day as navy officer John Byng (see ODNB). His English experience is told in his Lettere d’un vago italiano ad un suo amico, Pittburgo, 1767[1] (mentioned in the Roman periodical Efemeridi letterarie on 16.01.1773). The World Biographical Information System  (see Sitografia) say only that he was active between 1755 and 1767(see S. Amat).

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[1] Melzi, vol. II p. 118, claims that the volume was printed in Milan in 1761.

ANDREANI, Paolo

(Milano 1763 – Nizza 1823), famed for his experiments in aerial navigation, he travelled in France and England in 1784. His travel journal was transcribed and published in 1975 (Diario di viaggio di un gentiluomo milanese. Parigi-Londra 1784, Prefazione di Domenico Porzio, Milano: Il viale). Many of his letters are preserved at the Archive of Count Sormani-Andreani. His application to become member of the Royal Society in 1793 was rejected. DBI.

ALGAROTTI, Francesco

(Venice 1712 - Pisa 1764), celebrated polymath, became famous for a short book which divulged Newton's experiments (Il Neutonianismo per le dame, 1737). He travelled extensively throughout Europe, became an intimate friend of King Frederick II of Prussia, and visited Russia which he described in his Viaggi di Russia. His sojourns in England (1736,1738-39), during which he met Lady Montagu, Lord Hervey, Lord Burlington e A. Pope, are described in some letters and are referred to in many of his works. Member of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries (1736), Corresponding Member of the London Society of Arts since 1762. DBI, ODNB, Allen-Abbott 1992, pp. 253-264 e p. 409 n. 5.

ALFIERI, Vittorio

(Asti 1749 – Firenze 1803). Poet, playwright and relentless traveller, he visited all of Europe form Portugal to Sweden, from France to Russia. He was in England four times (1768, 1770-71, 1783, 1791). Interesting observations on his travels can be found in his autobiography (Vita) and in the satirical poem I viaggi. DBI.

ACERBI, Giuseppe

(Castelgoffredo MN 1776 – 1843). Great traveller, director of the Biblioteca Italiana (1816-1826), Austrian Consul in Egypt (1826-1834). In 1796 he set off on a long tour in Northern Europe which brought him as far as the North Cape. He sojourned in England and Ireland between 22 June 1796 and spring 1797, about which he left a manuscript journal (Diario) published by Simona Cappellari in 2012. He went back to England after his journey to Lapland, and in London he published his Travels through Sweden, Finland and Lapland to the North Cape in the years 1798 and 1799 (1802). Besides his Diario del soggiorno in Inghilterra (ms. 1307/1), the Biblioteca Teresiana in Mantova preserves numerous papers and travel documents (Carte Acerbi, b. II, n. 2-4), among which the Diario di viaggio attraverso l’Austria, la Germania e l’Inghilterra da Castel Goffredo a Bath (ms. 1287) and undated letters to his brother Luigi (Cfr. Cappellari, pp. 10 and 12). DBI (which does not mention the first English sojourn).