Alberto della Marmora

Alberto Ferrero della Marmora probably wrote the most famous work among the travel stories of the 19th century. His “Voyage en Sardaigne”, which appeared in a first edition in 1826 and then later in 1840 with the addition of a second part, will immediately be not only a model but also a stimulus for subsequent travelers who will reach the island.
Born in 1879 in Turin, in 1806 he attended courses at the Imperial Military School of Fontainebleu and began this career, but in 1821 he was exempted from providing further service and in 1824 he was ordered to go to Sardinia in confinement for liberal sympathies, and he stayed here for a long time. Even when he is forced to be absent for even short periods, he continues to collect his impressions of the island in notes.
The “Voyage”, embellished with 19 illustrated plates, is overall an extraordinary paleontological and geological, physical and political description of Sardinia, with careful research on its natural productions and its antiquities, a small encyclopedia the fruit of a passion that lasts a lifetime.
From his travels, which he himself does not hesitate to define as adventurous because they lack any comfort and are subject to dangers and the streets and villages inhabited by people who are not always friends, as well as malaria, springs the “Itinéraire de l'île de Sardaigne”, released in Turin in 1860. This second work is more specifically dedicated to the traveler, like a sort of manual that indicates the most “remarkable” things that cannot be overlooked to see and know.
Between 1823 and 1824, Captain William Henry Smyth, on behalf of the British Admiralty, drew up a nautical chart, which Della Marmora used, in collaboration with the specialist De Candia, to create a geographical map, which was engraved in Paris in 1845 and for over fifty years remained the most perfect representation of the island, closing the era of empirical cartography and opening that of geodesics.
Overall, the Count dedicated more than fifty scientific publications to Sardinia which, if they were not widely distributed on the island, had it abroad, focusing attention on a land hitherto shrouded in darkness, giving it value and attracting other curious glances.

Update

25/6/2026 - 13:23