Un italiano a Berlino. Gli articoli e le memorie tedesche di Ferdinando Fontana

This paper analyses the articles and memoirs of Ferdinando Fontana, one of the most prolific Italian correspondents in Germany in the second half of the 19th century. The aim is to underline how articles from abroad and egodocuments contributed to the spread and circulation of stereotyped images within public opinion. Ferdinando Fontana worked in Berlin as a correspondent for the “Gazzetta Piemontese” from 1878 to 1880. In his writings, Fontana presents an original vision of Germany for those times, describing in detail and with a certain ironic vein what happens in Berlin and in the various regions of the Empire. In his memoirs, with the title In Tedescheria (1895), the correspondent reported on his various experiences in Germany, which sometimes did not find space in the pages of the “Gazzetta Piemontese”. The essay underlines the different ways of narrating the “Germans” through the articles and the egodocuments of a correspondent, a narrative genre scarcely examined.