Nature Conservation, Political Events, and Diplomatic Activity. George Perkins Marsh in Italy, 1861-1882
Author(s)
Date Issued
2015
Type
article
Issue
2-3
Start Page
113
End Page
176
Journal
Abstract
Please Note
The third draft of this essay was delivered only in October 2014 for processing; the journal was published in 2015 (although its serial number reports 2014).
Abstract
The destruction of forests and its consequences on soil and watercourses, and on climate, the extirpation of vegetation, soil degradation, overuse of water resources, changes and alteration of rivers and coastal lines: in relation to his personal experience in his native Vermont, George Perkins Marsh focused the attention on the environmental devastation by human action. His call for nature restoration - through the national administrations - constituted an intellectual belief and a moral task.
Never as in this period, therefore, is the message of George Perkins Marsh so topical, his call for a wise and prudent use of natural resources and nature conservation so relevant, especially in Italy.
George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), citizen of the United States, is well-known in the world today as an essential catalyst for the Conservation Movement, but he is not always sufficiently renowned as a statesman and an adroit and influential diplomat. He lived in Italy from June 1861 until his death in 1882, in the role of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to the Kingdom of Italy.
Although American and Anglo-Saxon Geography of the second half of the 20th Century started to renew its own interest in the teachings of George Perkins Marsh and to delve into his cultural legacy, in Italy he remained in the shadows - and was hardly noticed in Europe -.
Therefore, Italian readers would find it relevant to also deepen their knowledge about George Perkins Marsh’s political and diplomatic career: during his Office in Italy and at the time of his decease he was of great political and cultural importance in the newborn unified Italian State.
In his diplomatic position he was well prepared to encounter the complexity of the Italian political and social situation. General Garibaldi, for example, was going to be part of Minister Marsh's life in Italy for several years, as this essay describes.
Minister Marsh's moral reputation and scientific renown made him the principal protagonist of complex and prestigious diplomatic affairs, as for example the Italo-American Treaty for mutual freedom of commerce and navigation, ratified in 1871 and destined to remain operative until World War II. The most important diplomatic question he treated was, in 1874, the arbitration between the Kingdom of Italy and the Swiss Confederation on an alpine boundary claimed by the two governments at the mountainous frontier of the Alp of Cravairola. Minister Marsh’s conclusion on this controversy has to be highly considered for his modern environmental considerations, which also contain a reference to the lack of interest, in Italy, for the safeguard of nature and the managing the hydro-geomorphological alpine system: it is an essential message for today's Italian ecological - environmental critical situation.
Consequently, in this essay attention will be concentrated particularly on George Perkins Marsh and Italy, where his masterpiece 'Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action' was written and then also translated into Italian from the first American edition of 1864.
Additional information
Please Note
The third draft of this essay was delivered only in October 2014 for processing; the journal was published in 2015 (although its serial number reports 2014).
- Author signs as: Fabienne Charlotte O. Vallino.
- The research is largely based on the manuscripts of G. P. Marsh kept at the University of Vermont Libraries, on documents preserved in other American archival collections, and in the historical archives of a series of diplomatic institutions in Europe.
- The archival research of daguerreotypes and old photographs is by the author.
The third draft of this essay was delivered only in October 2014 for processing; the journal was published in 2015 (although its serial number reports 2014).
- Author signs as: Fabienne Charlotte O. Vallino.
- The research is largely based on the manuscripts of G. P. Marsh kept at the University of Vermont Libraries, on documents preserved in other American archival collections, and in the historical archives of a series of diplomatic institutions in Europe.
- The archival research of daguerreotypes and old photographs is by the author.