Representations of Montenegrins in Italian travelogues on the occasion of the Savoy-Petrović wedding

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the image of Montenegrins in various Italian travelogues published at a time of significant interest among Italians about Montenegro, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This interest was encouraged by the marriage of the Italian Crown Prince Victor Emanuel to the Montenegrin Princess Jelena Petrović-Njegoš in 1896. By comparing the descriptions of Montenegrins in the books published in the ten years after that event, the article determines which features the Italian authors wanted to present to their readers, to what extent their presentation differs from the discourse about Montenegrins in the travel accounts published in earlier decades and which factors might have had an impact on this paradigm shift.