New Italy was a community founded in 1882 by survivors of the disastrous de Rays Expedition, a deceptive venture perpetrated by French nobleman, Marquis de Rays, who conned hundreds of Venetians into believing they were leaving behind the poverty of their homeland for the paradise of a prosperous colony known as New France on the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. Despite both the French and Italian governments banning the expedition from departing from their respective countries and warning their citizens that it was a scam, 340 Italians signed up…
