On Wednesday, 16 September, the Sala Elio Migliorini at the Società Geografica Italiana in Rome hosted a meeting dedicated to the presentation of the research on Gianni Albertini’s “Logbook” and the Heimen-SUCAI Arctic Expedition. The event, introduced by Claudio Cerreti, featured the participation of Roberta Rodelli and Gianluca Casagrande, the authors of the study.
The meeting provided an opportunity to revisit a significant chapter in the history of Italian exploration in the Arctic, focusing on the 1929 Heimen-SUCAI expedition led by engineer Gianni Albertini. The mission was conceived as the final Italian attempt to search for the missing members of the airship ITALIA expedition and developed through an extensive programme of navigation and exploration in the Arctic regions, also contributing to the collection of geographical and scientific data.
At the centre of the presentation was the expedition’s Logbook, written by Albertini himself and later subjected to a process of digitisation, transcription and study carried out between 2024 and 2026. The comparison of this source with additional documentation and data gathered during the research led to the publication of the 96th volume in the Memorie della Società Geografica Italiana series, entitled Gianni Albertini’s Logbook and the Expedition of the Heimen-SUCAI.
During the meeting, the main themes of the research process and the value of the sources examined were presented, offering a new perspective on an episode that had long remained relatively understudied. The presentation also helped draw attention not only to the exploratory aspects of the expedition, but also to its historical, geographical and scientific significance, as well as to the documentary heritage that preserves its memory today.