Nueva Italia, Paraguay Nueva Italia, Paraguay Nueva Italia (Spanish for "New Italy") is a town in the Central Department of Paraguay. Nueva Italia was created in 1904 by the Paraguay government in order to establish some colonists from Italy and their 18 families in a farming area 40 km south of the capital Asunción. However also some German and Ucranian emigrants moved to live there. The first manager-administrator of this "Colonia Nueva Italia" (as was officially named) was the Italian count Enrico Statella. After WW1 many Italians returned to Italy or moved to the capital Asuncion, but the settlement -after an initial crisis-
Revolt of the Comuneros (Paraguay) their streets and enforcing the new governor's rule. This wound never healed. By 1721, hatred of the Jesuits was even more intense than it was in the early 1600s. In 1717, Diego de los Reyes Balmaseda became governor of Paraguay. He purchased the position from the Spanish authorities, a practice that had spread at the time. Reyes was a merchant who had made his fortune trading exporting yerba mate from Paraguay and importing various cheap and needed manufactures back to Paraguay, so he was seen as qualified for the post by the Spanish Crown. Reyes was an open admirer of