‘Il viaggio della Vespucci’ is a project that has generated a genuine cultural phenomenon, with media coverage exceeding 38,000 items across newspapers, websites, television, radio and national and international news agencies, 1.3 billion views across social media channels, and over 120 million interactions. Andrea Fagioli, «Avvenire», 18 April 2026
The Amerigo Vespucci, the sailing ship that symbolises Italian maritime tradition and is known as ‘the most beautiful ship in the world’, set sail from Los Angeles in July 2023, subsequently calling at Tokyo, Darwin, Singapore, Mumbai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Jeddah and, for the first time, Cape Horn, on a voyage lasting two years. This historic undertaking is preserved in memory through a four-part documentary series Vespucci – Il viaggio più lungo, directed by Flavio Maspes, narrated by Luca Ward and with music by Nicola Piovani, produced by Palomar in collaboration with the Marina Militare Italiana and RAI. Cinematography by Tommaso Lusena de Sarmiento CCS and Fabio Paolucci The first episode aired on Rai 3 on 17 April, with the second following on 24 April. Available on RaiPlay
The undertaking, experienced first-hand by the men and women of the crew under the command of Giuseppe Lai, is a journey shaped by relationships, learning and responsibility, in which discipline and a spirit of collaboration intertwine with a strong emotional involvement. Through the sailors’ accounts, the viewer gains access to the everyday life on board, observing at close range the dynamics of teamwork and the ability to face and overcome difficulties. It is a portrait of the Navy that opens up to the public, becoming a shared experience. The voyage, long and demanding, on the one hand crosses distant places and brings the crew into contact with different cultures, while on the other it offers a constant opportunity to deepen the relationship with the sea and the oceans
TOMMASO LUSENA DE SARMIENTO TOLD US:
“Serving as director of photography for the footage shot aboard the Vespucci, for the series Vespucci – Il viaggio più lungo, was far more than a ‘job’: it was a profound return to something that has always been part of me. I have sailed since I was five years old, and the sea has never been merely a backdrop, but a living presence, a silent and powerful interlocutor — I am utterly dependent on it, so much so that even my production company, Argo Film, was born from a nautical suggestion, defining itself as a ‘notice to mariners’. Throughout this project I constantly pursued natural light, allowing myself to be guided by its changes, by the reflections on the water, by the imperceptible variations that transform every frame into something unrepeatable. Light is never static: it shifts with the voyage, accompanying the ship and all of us through different seas and skies. There were moments of pure perfection, as in Hawaii, where every element seemed to align in a rare, almost suspended equilibrium. And then the passage from Honolulu to Tokyo, with those extraordinary clouds skimming the surface of the sea — images that seemed to emerge from a dream rather than from reality. The sea, for me, and the Pacific Ocean in particular, represents a ‘blue sovereign’: immense, commanding, yet also capable of infinite delicacy. It is the true protagonist of every frame, and it is to the sea that I sought to do justice through every visual choice. From this experience a new project is now taking shape: a travel journal that I kept along the route, enriched by photographs I took both on film and digitally. A personal visual narrative that will soon become a photography book entitled The Blue King, in which I shall endeavour to convey not only what I saw, but above all what I felt.”
