New Zealand and Europe: Connections and Comparisons

From Archivio Digitale


Category: Book


Title New Zealand and Europe: Connections and Comparisons
Author edited by Bernadette Luciano, David G. Mayes
Editor {{{editor}}}
Year 2005
Publisher Rodopi
ISBN 9042019042
Language English
Format ebook
Geographic reference
Time reference
Online resource extracts from the book available online
Subcategory {{{subcategory}}}
Topic Felice Vaggioli, Giuseppe Capra, Italian explorations of New Zealand, Catholic, Priest, Missionaries, Missionari, Clero, Italian Missionaries, Missionari italiani in Nuova Zelanda, Māori, Italian priests in New Zealand,


You can find the book here


Chapter selection: 'Una Italia Australe'? Two Italian Travellers Describe New Zealand' By Daniela Cavallaro

One of first comparative studies of the cultural, political and economic interactions between New Zealand and Europe. In Part II of the book, From page 205 to 221, we can find Daniela Cavallaro's 'Una Italia Australe'? Two Italian Travellers Describe New Zealand' Two members of the Roman Catholic clergy figure among the early Italian travellers to New Zealand: Felice Vaggioli, a Benedictine monk who lived in New Zealand as a missionary between 1879 and 1887, and Giuseppe Capra, a priest who travelled as a geographer about twenty years later. Both wrote books about their experience in what Capra defined as 'the Italy of the Southern Hemisphere': Vaggioli's Storia della Nuova Zelanda e dei suoi abitatori, originally written in the 1890s, and Capra's La Nuova Zelanda: una Italia australe (1911) and La Nuova Zelanda: il paese dei Maori (1913). This essay focuses on how these two early Italian travellers represent New Zealand to an Italian audience of perspective settlers by describing the geographic and climatic aspects of the country, by reporting on the life conditions of Italian migrants, and by using Italy as a term of reference for everything New Zealand. Finally, the article not only highlights an early view of New Zealand as seen through Italian eyes, but also uncovers an implicit representation of how Italy viewed itself in the early 1900s.

The book, in print and ebook format, can be found here.
Also available at The University of Auckland, General Library, New Zealand & Pacific, Level G. Click here for more info.
Sample pages can be previewed here.