Viaggiatori italiani lungo il Fiume Azzurro (1866-1937)

The Yangtze River represented, for centuries, a very important waterway directed to inner China. After the signing of the First Sino-Italian Treaty (1866), the Italian interests in the region grew, and a significant number of Italians travelled upstream the river. The paper discusses the main figures and travelogues, the routes and the respective aims (commercial, on official mission, for work, for tourism). The inset of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937), with the Japanese occupation of the lower Yangtze, implied a drastic end of these dynamics.