William Henry Smith

“During the two visits I made to Sardinia during the last war, I was convinced that few places, opposed to the assimilative suggestions of civilization, have preserved so much of their primitive character. And having had the honor of being commissioned by the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty, in 1823 and 1824, to survey those coasts, I decided to add to my previous observations information on the general state of the island and its resources, as time and my professional duties would allow me to do, in order to somehow repair that lack of data that was so evident to me in my first report.” This is the motivation that led William Henry Smith to write, in 1828, his 'Sketch of the present state of the Island of Sardinia'.
Born in Westminster in 1788, he was seventeen years old when he joined the British Navy and had already traveled in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific; he then took part in the wars against Napoleon and participated in the defense of Sicily from Murat's attacks. He became an expert cartographer and also dedicated himself to astronomical studies, publishing various works and building an astronomical observatory in Bradford. His' Sketch '(in Italian for 'sketch, synthesis') is one of the most important works among nineteenth-century travel reports, despite the fact that it was not widely distributed. When the book appears in England, Sardinia is truly an unknown and mysterious island, and the Captain has the merit of presenting it, in the eyes of his compatriots, as a possible stop on the European Grand Tour. Armed with a telescope, he covers the entire perimeter: he is a geographer, hydrogeographer and cartographer. With the task of finalizing the map, he stays there for more than a year (he becomes friends with La Marmora who lets him read his “Voyage” a preview) but he is not limited to the coasts: he visits the main cities, and some areas in the interior. The work, more than three hundred pages with about ten illustrations, is written with a dry and fast language, more attentive to data and detail than to the literary rhythm, and especially when it deals with the part of the coast, the descriptions become detailed. It also narrates the ancient history of the island, referring it, as was frequently the case in those years, to the events of the Trojans and the Greeks. The most interesting chapter is the one on customs and traditions, told with particular attention to superstitions. It is impossible not to report a bizarre error, at least for a cartographer: he maintains - and reiterates after twenty-five years - that Sardinia is bigger than Sicily.

Update

25/6/2026 - 13:22