The 18th century Giambatista Albrizzi description of Malta and Gozo

Abstract

In the 18th century, Thomas Salmon (1679-1767) was the author of a description of all the countries and peoples of the world, which appeared in various volumes, entitled Modern History or the Present State of All Nations. The Italian translation of this voluminous work saw the light between 1736 and 1748, when Giambatista Albrizzi, an established printer in Venice, published it with the title Lo stato presente di tutti i paesi e popoli de[ mondo ecc. When presenting the translation of this work, in the first volume dedicated to China, Giambatista Albrizzi was full of pride in declaring that, after the Dutch, French and German translations, it was now the turn of the Italian translation to see the light. This second 1740 Italian edition of Volume I was "riveduta, correna e accresciuta". The term "accresciuta" betrays the fact that Albrizzi actually added new information to the original text written by Salmon.