In the field of Salesian historiography, the volume constitutes an almost absolute novelty: the book’s fifteen or so authors are practically all lay people, outside the Salesian world, and all university professors or Directors of museums and National Study Centers. So, people of culture who have committed themselves to present some of the many facets of perhaps the most famous Salesian in South America, not coincidentally also called "Don Patagonia": a diligent cartographer by birth, a skilled climber and expert photographer by territorial heritage, a good priest by vocation, a generous missionary by choice, an intrepid explorer of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, a valuable tourist promoter, with excellent skills as a naturalist, ethnologist, writer, and filmmaker.
In that land at "world’s end" dreamed of by Don Bosco, Fr. De Agostini, with ten transatlantic crossings, carried out expeditions of great scientific value by courageously climbing dozens of mountains mostly covered with snow and ice, crossed unexplored virgin forests, navigated tumultuous waters, traveling on foot, on horseback, on wagons, thousands of kilometers of impervious and unexplored terrain, all faced with a scarcity of means and amid incredible climatic difficulties.
For 50 years (1910-1960), equally divided between Italy and Argentina-Chile, he intertwined long excursions with days of desk work, alternated scientific explorations and publications with educational and priestly activities, interspersed absolute solitudes with community life. Through books, lectures, photographs, and documentaries he put the last strip of land unknown to mankind on the world map – this before airplanes could easily fly over it - and he handed down natural vistas and faces of indigenous peoples before they disappeared to future generations: the former from global warming, the latter from violent contact or impact with the "civilization and progress" of Western invaders.
The volume will soon be presented in Rome and later in Turin-Valdocco, where the exhibition already displayed at the Roman conference will also be remounted and enriched.
