Alphonse de Lamartine

Alphonse de Lamartine was born in Mâcon in 1790. After completing his studies, he arrived in Italy and stayed in Naples, an experience that was decisive for his work and for his romantic life. He dedicated himself to a diplomatic career, he obtained his first position in Naples, then in Florence, but since 1830 he has been involved in politics: after a trip to the East he was elected deputy and actively participated in the work of the Chamber; his activity culminated in 1848 with his participation in the republican government, as minister of foreign affairs. Napoleon III's coup permanently removed him from the scene and in the following years he must write to survive. He died in Paris on February 28, 1869.
He landed in Sardinia, in the Gulf of Palmas, in July 1832. He doesn't arrive there suddenly: he comes from Marseille where he rented a brig named Alceste, more than two hundred tons of boat, sixteen crewmen armed with guns and sabers, several cannons ready for use on the bridge. Sardinia is the most dangerous stop on the Grand Tour and every exotic destination worth its salt must have its shores infested with pirates. More than the marauders, it is the sea that causes the biggest problems. A sudden mistral storm prevents the landing in Carloforte twice, when you can now see the houses, and finally after a few days it is the Gulf of Palmas that welcomes the brig “like a seabird hovering on its wings”. Finally, the landing on an uncontaminated beach: “from the sand of the big thistles, a few spots of aloe, here and there a few bushes of a shrub with a pale and gray skin and whose leaves are similar to those of a cedar.” A small group of soldiers approaches the boat to check the documents and the poet takes the opportunity to exchange a few words in Neapolitan dialect and break the ice, but the break is short: “We leave the Gulf of Palmas through a sea like a mirror, a light breeze from the west blows that barely dries the dew of the night that shines on the jagged branches of the mastic tree.” Then the Alceste heads to Tunisia.

Update

25/6/2026 - 13:34