Guiana Toscana
Ferdinand I’s lost dream of a Tuscan South America
In the late 16th century, with Spain dominating southern Italy and influencing the north, Grand Duke Ferdinand I pushed for more autonomy in Tuscany. Aside from improving the economy at home and making Livrono a free port, he also looked to establish colonies abroad - in Africa - but Spain and Portugal refused. Not looking to give up so easily, he looked further afield.
It was then that Ferdinand ordered an expedition, in 1608, to explore the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. The exploratory mission - known as the Thornton Expedition after the English sailor Robert Thornton who was commissioned to head it - sought to establish a colony in South America to facilitate trade in valuable Amazonian goods, such as spices, dyes, and medicinal plants, and to enhance Tuscany’s economic influence. He focused the mission on parts of the Amazon and Guiana as they were less tightly controlled by Spain & Portugal.
At the time, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana were not established, and the general area they now encompass was called the Guianas.
However, Ferdinand’s death - in early 1609 - cut the project short, and his successor Cosimo II abandoned it. The Thornton Expedition wasn’t a total loss, however. They not only were able to utilize extensive maps from Livorno’s renowned cartographic school but they brought back a lot of new information. Robert Dudley, Earl of Warwick, had joined the crew while in Livorno, eventually creating the first maritime atlas and introduced Mercator projection maps to Italy [3]. Other “belongings” they returned with included unknown metals, a few dozen aborigines and some tropical parrots.
While the mission ended prematurely, Ferdinand’s death underscored the reality that Tuscany might have established the only Italian colony in South America. The failure sheds light on how smaller Italian states - namely Venice, Genoa and Florence - couldn’t compete with major colonial powers when it came to establishing their own.
Here’s an imaginary map of what the colony might have looked like, along with a short story, in Italian, on how it might have proceeded.
Additional Information
1 - The Brazilian spice trade
2 - Reimagining roots in the New World
3 - Il tentativo toscano di colonizzare le Americhe (14m)
Sources
1 - L’esperimento coloniale fallito di Ferdinando de’ Medici.
2 - From Livorno the "Thornton expedition", colonial attempt by Ferdinando I