Ethnography and Historiography in Fulvia Miani Perotti’s Travel Writings

Abstract

In her odeporic writings, the Apulian writer Miani Perotti (1844 – 1931) reaffirms the regional identity and the traditions of the genius loci in line with the propaganda based on the backbone of demological research in Italy in the post-unification years; that is, the relationship between regional and national identity. The essay analyses a collection of short stories, Profili e paesaggi, which contains three long travel stories (Su pe’ Colli, Riva Adriatica, Nella Magna Grecia) that describe the rural society of Apulia. The analysis shows that Miani Perotti favours historiographical and ethnographic aspects at the expense of the plot, which is therefore used as a mere pretext to write about the past and present uses and customs of a familiar, therefore not alienated, land.