1940 Gargiulo Pictorial Map of Africa

This whimsical c. 1940 Italian-language pictorial map of Africa was drawn by an artist named Gargiulo to illustrate the African expedition of Italian scientist Nino del Grande.

A Closer Look

The bulk of the African continent is displayed, with illustrations representing different areas' historical sites, geographical features (such as Victoria Falls), flora, and fauna. The route of del Grande is traced, leaving from Cairo and heading southwards into Sudan before taking a circuitous route through Kenya, heading south through to Zimbabwe, and finally reaching Quelimane in Mozambique.

Nino del Grande's Travels in Africa

Nino del Grande was the leader of a little-known Italian scientific expedition in Africa in the early 1930s (spedizione scientifica del Grande). Del Grande was a dilettante archeologist, explorer, and scientist, though his formal training was as a structural engineer. Ostensibly, his expedition between Cairo and Mozambique was meant to collect snake poison to develop a serum for bites. But del Grande and his team dabbled in amateur archaeology along the way, discovering a 20,000-year-old iron smelting site at Mumbwa in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), near the Lukanga Swamps (Paludi di Lukanga), so marked on the map. However, as neither del Grande nor anyone on his team was a professional archaeologist, the samples returned from their excavations were not able to definitively confirm their findings (though later work by other archaeologists did).

In the end, del Grande's expedition was a minor affair briefly trumpeted by Italy's fascist government to boost the credentials of the country's scientists. But, as with Italy's overall colonial efforts in Africa, the expedition and its paltry results only proved the country's inadequacies as a colonial power vis-à-vis the British and French.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn by one Gargiulo, about whom nothing is known, and appeared in del Grande's 1940 account of his expedition 50.000 KM. nel cuore dell'Africa, published by Bompiani. The map is not independently cataloged among the holdings of any institution. Del Grande's book is held by four institutions in the OCLC, while a supplementary book of plates (50.000 km. nel cuore dell'Africa quarantotto tavole fuori testo, from which this map may be drawn) is held by five (including three in North America - Northwestern University, the Library of Congress, and Temple University).