[1] Malaspina was born in Mulazzo, a small principality ruled by his family, then part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, a fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire.

[2] In February 1787, the Astrea called at Concepción in Chile, whose military governor, the Irish-born Ambrosio O'Higgins, had six months before recommended that Spain organize an expedition to the Pacific similar to those led by Lapérouse and Cook.

Following the Astrea's return to Spain, Malaspina, in partnership with José de Bustamante and advised by Francisco Muñoz y San Clemente, produced a proposal for an expedition along the lines set out in OHiggins's memorandum.

José de Espinoza y Tello, one of the officers of the Malaspina expedition, subsequently confirmed the importance of the information sent by O'Higgins in stimulating the Government to initiate an extensive program of exploration in the Pacific.

The bohemian naturalist Thaddäus Haenke missed the boat, but joined in 1790 in Santiago de Chile after crossing South America by land from Montevideo.

[11] Malaspina stopped at Montevideo and Buenos Aires, investigating the political situation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.

Continuing north, Bustamante mapped the coast while Malaspina sailed to the Juan Fernández Islands in order to resolve conflicting data on their location.

By the time Malaspina reached Mexico it was 1791, and there he received a dispatch from the king of Spain, ordering him to search for a Northwest Passage in the region of latitude 60 degrees N, newly thought to have been discovered many years previously.

Spanish scholars made a study of the tribe, recording information on social mores, language, economy, warfare methods, and burial practices.

Artists with the expedition, Tomas de Suria and José Cardero, produced portraits of tribal members and scenes of Tlingit daily life.

Owing in part to Malaspina's ability to bequeath generous gifts from his well-supplied ships about to return to Mexico, the friendship between the Spanish and the Nootkas was strengthened.

After weeks of negotiations the principal Nootka chief, Maquinna, agreed that the Spanish would always remain owners of the land they then occupied, and that they had acquired it with all due propriety.

Botanical studies were carried out, including an attempt to make a type of beer out of spruce needles that was hoped to have anti-scorbutic properties for combating scurvy.

The expedition ships took on water and wood, and provided the Spanish outpost with many useful goods, including medicines, food, various tools and utensils, and a Réaumur scale thermometer.

[14] After departing Nootka Sound the two ships sailed south, stopping at the Spanish settlement and mission at Monterey, California, before returning to Mexico.

[16] During the expedition's stay at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, in March–April 1793, Thaddäus Haenke carried out observations and made collections relating to the natural history of the place, as he reported to the colony's patron, Sir Joseph Banks, saying: "I here express the public testimony of a grateful soul for the very extraordinary humanity and kindness with which the English in their new Colony welcomed us wandering vagabonds, Ulysses' companions.

A Nation renowned throughout the world, which has left nothing untried, will also overcome with the happiest omens, by the most assiduous labour and by its own determined spirit the great obstacles opposing it in the foundation of what may one day become another Rome.

"[17] During its visit to Port Jackson, twelve drawings were done by members of the expedition, which are a valuable record of the settlement in its early years, especially as among them are the only depictions of the convict settlers from this period.

[18] The recently founded English colony had been included in the expedition's itinerary in response to a memorandum drawn up in September 1788 by one of Malaspina's fellow naval officers, Francisco Muñoz y San Clemente, who warned of the dangers it posed to the Spanish possessions in the Pacific in peacetime from the development of a contraband commerce and in war time as a base for British naval operations.

These possessions will have a navy of their own, obtaining from the Southern region whatever is necessary to establish it, and when they have it ready formed they will be able to invade our nearby possessions ..."[19] In the confidential report he wrote following his visit, Malaspina echoed the warning from Muñoz, writing of the "terrible" future danger for Spain from the English colony at Port Jackson, from whence with the greatest ease a crossing of two or three months through healthy climates, and a secure navigation, could bring to our defenceless coasts two or three thousand castaway bandits to serve interpolated with an excellent body of regular troops.

It would not be surprising that in this case—the women also sharing the risks as well as the sensual pleasures of the men—the history of the invasions of the Huns and Alans in the most fertile provinces of Europe would be revived in our surprised colonies....The pen trembles to record the image, however distant, of such disorders.While recognizing the strategic threat it posed to Spain's Pacific possessions in time of war, Malaspina wrote: "It is not the concern of these paragraphs to demonstrate in detail the many schemes for these projected plunderings, so much as the easiest ways of preventing them."

Having seen carts and even ploughs being drawn by convicts for want of draught animals in the colony, and having eaten meals with the colonists at which beef and mutton were regarded as rare luxuries, Malaspina saw the trade in Chilean livestock as the key to a profitable commerce.

Conscious that the policy he was proposing was a bold and imaginative one in the face of Spain's traditional insistence on a national monopoly of trade and other relations within her empire, Malaspina declared that "this affair is exceedingly favourable to the commercial balance of our Colonies," and it would have the advantage of calming and tranquilizing "a lively, turbulent and even insolent neighbour....not with sacrifices on our part but rather with many and very considerable profits.

James Cook had made great progress against the disease, but other British captains, such as George Vancouver, found his accomplishment difficult to replicate.

Disenchanted, Malaspina led a philosophical-literary polemic in the Madrid press on the meaning of beauty in nature,[24] and at the same time took part in a secret conspiracy to overthrow Manuel Godoy.

Unfortunately Malaspina had lost the support he used to have at the royal court before his voyage and the political situation had changed radically, due in part to the French Revolution.

[25] After an inconclusive trial on April 20, 1796, Charles IV decreed that Malaspina be stripped of rank and imprisoned in the isolated fortress of San Antón in La Coruña, Galicia.

[27] A large portion of the documents meant to be used as source material for the publication of Malaspina's expedition remained scattered in archives to the present day.

[30] In 1809, José Espinosa y Tello published the astronomical and geodesic observations made during the expedition in a two-volume work that also contained an abbreviated narrative of the voyage.

Such a loss cannot fail to be felt far and wide by all those who, placing high value on the importance of the nautical and travel accounts of this most talented Italian, have known his equanimity in both good and bad fortune; it is without doubt most bitter for those who witnessed the end from close by and who, moreover, had to admire his fortitude in suffering patiently to the very last the most severe pains of a long intestinal illness.