MALASPINA, ALESSANDRO di MULAZZO. - Navigator, b. in 1754 at Mulazzo in Lunigiana, he entered the service of the Spanish navy and, after a visit to the Philippines, made a voyage around the world (1781).
On his return he proposed to the Spanish government a great scientific expedition in the Pacific Ocean. Having set out from Cadiz on 30 July 1789, he headed for the estuary of the Plata where he carried out the first hydrographic surveys, then, having rounded Cape Horn and penetrated into the Pacific, he sailed up all the American coasts as far as 60° north latitude, with frequent stops for observations, measurements and research; he carried out hundreds of surveys of little-known coastal sections (for example, of the Galapagos Islands), and also measurements of the heights of mountains close to the sea, gravity measurements and hydrographic research of various kinds. Having returned to Acapulco, the expedition crossed the Pacific, visiting the Marianas and the Philippines, where about 100 original charts and coastal plans were drawn, then, by way of the New Hebrides, Australia, New Zealand and Tonga, it returned to Callao (23 July 1793) and finally made its way back to Spain in Sept. 1794. Welcomed at first with very great honours and having become an influential intimate at court, he was confined in the fortress of S. Antonio de la Coruña because of the hostility he showed toward the inept minister of Charles IV, Godoy, who had accused him of conspiring against the State. Liberated only in 1802 at the request of Napo-
leon, M. retired to Italy and died at Pontemoli on 9 Apr. 1810. M.'s imprisonment and his repatriation prevented the immense material collected by him and by his collaborators from being elaborated and published. The account of the voyage was published only in 1885; of the cartographic material part was dispersed, part remained unpublished; only some materials were published or served as the basis for works in which M. is often not even cited.
Bibliography2 works
Roberto Almagià