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).