Una rappresentazione diplomatica e di parte: il ritratto (geo)letterario della Tunisi di Guglielmo Collotti (1876)

Abstract

The paper aims to retrace the (geo)-literary portrait of the city of Tunis by analysing the work Tunisi e il suo popolo. Studi impressioni e ricordi (Tunis and its people. Studies, impressions and memories), written by Guglielmo Collotti and published in Catania in 1876. This work is a travel report of a journey planned by Collotti with the excuse of presenting a “philanthropic” award to the sovereign of the Regency of Tunis. In fact, it gave the Sicilian nobleman the opportunity to visit the places inhabited by a large Italian community. The epistemological approach being adopted in the study, which is a geographical one, takes into consideration the historical and cultural context in which the author’s political beliefs developed: his interpretation of the landscape and the places he describes mirrors his choice of sometimes favouring colonial propaganda “Occidental” over the narration of events.