Often we ask us why the grate North, the Lapland and Cape Northare territories that always provoke admiration, desire of knowledge: we do not statisticses but the presence of the Italian tourists in this area is certanly very high.

Perhaps, a motive has to be researched in the history and in the literature of the past centuries, where a lot Italian and particularly those who traveled through the European markets, wrote, told and documented a lot of aspects of peoples, territories and nature of the large North Europe.

In this page is traced a short profile of three italian "explorers " of the large North Europe, not literally explorers because, for example, Querini and partners land to the Lofoten islands in Norway after a large storm in the North Sea. However, they area the ones that have written and about the people and the territory of the North Europe and they have them known.

Pietro Querini is not an explorer but a dealer that in 1432 transported wine toward the North Europe, in an area dominated by the Hanseatica League: he has the merit of having described and having made known to Europe the Norwegian people that inhabited the southern islands of the Lofoten, as he haa been shipwrecked after days of storm.

Pietro Querini, Cristoforo Fioravante and Nicolò di Michiel came from Venice and they were sailing towards the Flanders with 800 barrels of malvasia and other goods.

September 14th , he pass Cape Finisterre.

In the North Sea, a storm breaks the rudder, tears the sail, breaks the trees, and for about six weeks they are in power of the water running that conveys the wreck of the ship to Iceland. In December 17th the crew get divided: 18 of them board in a boat and 47 of them, included the three Venetians, in a second one. Their boat is transported towards the North of the Norway where the three of them shipwreck and land, in janurary 4th 1482, on a southern island of the Lofoten, Rost, with just 16 men on board. They live for eleven days camped on the costs, before meeting Norwegian fishermen of the island.

Some authors are not sure that the island was the Rost one, but it could be able to be other southern islands, like Ando or Longo.

The three dealers stay there for 4 months, from February to May, allowing Querini to describe, in a book, that will have wide spread, the Norwegian fishermen, their habits, the activity of the fishing and their land: "For three months in a year, from June to September, the Sun doesn’t set, while in the opposite months is almost always night. From november 20th to february 20th the night is continuous, lasting 21 hours, even though the moon is always visible; from may 20th to August 20th instead is sun to be always visible or at least its flash… the insular, about a hundred fishermen, were benevolent and obliging, …they lived in a dozen of round houses, that have a round opening to the top thet they cover with fischskin; their only resource is the fish that they sell in Bergen."

May 15th , the three Venetians take place on a direct boat to Bergen, together with the chaplain.

They stop to Trondheim and therefore they got on board on a direct ship to London. Hence they return to Venice via land, passing from Basilea.

Querini, in his written, refer to a certain Giovanni Franco, an italian navigator that established in Sweden to the court of the king.

Retract of: Francesco Negri

He come from Ravenna and he is a priest. In 1663 he goes to Lapland and therefore he arrives to Cape North, after an unsuccessful attempt in which from the Norwegian costs he came back to Stockholm. Hence he leaves again following the Norwegian costs until Cape North.

He writes the manuscript "Northern Journey", that will be published in 1700 after his death, where there is a precise and careful description of the life of the Lapponi and of the Norwegians of the XVI century… pressed by the curiosity and the adventure to those lands where "not any fruit can come up because of the extreme cold to the testify of writers; in spite of that the human being survive. There is not inhabited land, that it is known, under its parallel, and the glacial arctic zone is totally unknown. Therefore that country have quality that other ones don’t have, but singular; therefore it will be the most curious part of the world to observe yourself."

In 1666 he came back to Italy.

There are not other information, if some partner or navigator was in possession of it, he can transmit them to: info@circolopolare.com

Retract of: Giuseppe Acerbi

In the spring of 1799, the mantuan Giuseppe Acerbicarries out an exploration journey that start from Kemi in Finland and arrives to North Kapp, throughout the route that delimits now the boundary between Sweden and Finland.

Giuseppe Acerbi was born in Castel Goffredo in province of Mantua in may 3^rd, 1773, he finishes studies in law, with special attention to the humanistic and social matters; but is above all the mastery of the English tongues, the french one and the german one that allow him to travel and to be an excellent documentary maker of its time.

The journey: from Oulu to North kapp

He reaches Oulu in the actual Gulf of Botnia to the north of Finland, with an italian friend, Bernardo Bellotti from Brescia, and here he joints swedish specialists of botanist and meteorology as Skjoldebrand and Johan Julin.

The richeses of Acerbi ‘s exploration are the observations and the documentation that he collects about the Lapland people, their customs, social life and the relation with the territory and the nature…

and in 1799 Acerbi practices his polyhedral preparation so that to observe, to draw, to note its journey under different aspects : territory, nature, people, flora, fauna, music.

The Acerbi and Skjoldebrand drawings are very important:

In 1802 he publics in London, in English, a report of his journeys in northern Europe : " Travel through Sweden , Finland and Lapland to the North Cap in the years 1798 and 1799 " (the Italian translation, in reality, is a summary of the "Travels" and will be published in Milan in 1832 with the title "Journey to Cape North"). In his journeys he knows a lot of personalities of european importance like Madame de Stael, Goethe, Malthus, Klopstock.

He lives in Paris, like an employee of the Cisalpina Republic delegation nd here he meets and attends Napoleon. But his stay Parisian finish in a bad way and he returns in Italy where he finish many natural science, agricolutural and musical studies … In 1815 he is in Vienna, where he is named General Console of Austria and Lisbon, town that he never reaches because he dwelt to Milan, where found and directs the magazine "Italian Library".

In 1825 he is named General Console of Austria in Egypt, and the year after he established in Alessandria. "he remains in Egypt until 1834 doing numerous journeys and explorations. He participates in the archeological shipping of Champollion, he visit the northern Egypt and the Nubia, and subsequently he also goes in the suthern Egypt. In these journeys he collects a lot of archeological material than today is part of collections of varied italian and foreigners museums, among which those of Milan and Mantua ( Egyptian Museum of Palazzo Te)".

Came back to Italy, in 1836 he withdrawn definitive to Castel Goffredo, his birth town, where in August 25th 1846 he dies.

The town of Castel Goffredo dedicates to Acerbi a annual literary prize, from 1993 with the purpose of spreading the image of Castel Goffredo in the word, not only for its more rilevant industrial product, socks, but also by cultural initiatives of high level. The Prize has the porpose of contributing to the spreading of the literary production of authors, until now, little known in Italy, cominig from Europeans and extraeuropeans Nations or cultural areas".