History of the Colony (1882-1935)
Dore, Gianni. “La vita nelle colonie 1923 – 1941,” in M. Isnenghi – G. Albanese (a cura di), Gli Italiani in guerra, vol. 3, Torino, UTET, 2008, ISBN 9788802081021, pp. 651-658
In this work, Dore analyzes different problematic aspects of life in Italian colonies in Africa by highlighting the fact that after the invasion of Ethiopia (1935), numerous were the internal conflicts that involved settlers and colonial officers.
Dore, Gianni. Amministrare L’esotico: L’etnografia Pratica Dei Funzionari E Dei Missionari Nell’eritrea Coloniale. Padova: CLEUP, 2017
Gianni Dore examines the ways Italians perpetrated occupation and colonialism. He primarily analyzes how the disciplines of ethnography and anthropology were instrumental to colonial rule. In particular, Dore centers his investigation on how missionaries and colonial officers administrate the colonies.
Dore, Gianni. Governare L’oltremare: Istituzioni, Funzionari E Società Nel Colonialismo Italiano. Roma: Carocci, 2013.
Renowned anthropologist Gianni Dore examines colonial officers’ documents and memoirs. With this crucial study, Dore sheds light on the paradoxes and the precariousness of Italian colonial rule.
Negash, Tekeste. Italian Colonialism in Eritrea, 1882-1941: Policies, Praxis and Impact. Uppsala: s.n, 1987
In this work, Eritrean historian Tekeste Negash argues that Italian colonialism failed in the intent of supplanting and drastically altering Eritrea’s main economic, social, and cultural structures.
Piredda, M. Francesca. “Cinema and Popular Preaching: the Italian Missionary Film and Fiamme” Popular Italian Cinema, Louis Bayman & Sergio Rigoletto (Editors), Palgrave Macmillan, UK. 2013
A pivotal study in Italian missionary cinema where Piredda focuses in particular on the film Fiamme (1930) by the Saverians from Parma, Italy, and locates it in the larger context of Catholic missionary productions from the interwar years.
Sòrgoni, Barbara. Parole e Corpi. Antropologia, discorso giuridico e politiche sessuali interraziali nella colonia Eritrea (1890-1941), Liguori Editore, 1998
In this work, by looking at Italian government’s policies on sexual regulation in the colonies, Sorgoni argues that before fascism there was what she defines as a “moderate subjection policy,” while during the empire there was a policy of totalitarian subjection.
Sòrgoni, Barbara. Etnografia E Colonialismo: L’Eritrea e l’Etiopia di Alberto Pollera (1873-1939). Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2001
Sorgoni examines Italian colonial rule by focusing on the writings of Alberto Pollera (1873-1939), military and anthropologist who spent most of his life in Asmara, Eritrea.
Taylor, P.M. and Marino, C. (2019), “Paolo Mantegazza’s Vision: The Science of Man behind the World’s First Museum of Anthropology (Florence, Italy, 1869).” Mus Anthropol, 42: 109-124
This work investigates Italian anthropologist Paolo Mantegazza’s (1831-1910) career and main works.
Zaccaria, Massimo. “In posa per una più grande Italia. Considerazioni sulle prime immagini del colonialismo italiano, 1885-1898” in Bollini Maria Grazia (a cura di), Eritrea 1885-1898. Nascita di una colonia attraverso i documenti e le fotografie di Antonio Gandolfi, Ledru Mauro e Federigo Guarducci, Bologna, Comune di Bologna, 2007, pp. [339]-358
Zaccaria analyses how numerous Italian photographers constructed colonial propaganda between 1885 and 1898 intending to convince the opponents of colonialism about the advantages that the occupation of Eritrea could bring to Italy.
Zaccaria, Massimo. “‘Tu Hai Venduto La Giustizia in Colonia’: Avvocati, Giudici E Coloni Nell’eritrea Di Giuseppe Salvago Raggi 1907-1915.” Africa: Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi E Documentazione Dell’istituto Italiano Per L’Africa E L’Oriente. 61 (2006): 317-395.
In this study, Zaccaria discusses crucial phases in Italian colonial administration. He focuses in particular on the role covered by judges and magistrates in Eritrea during the mandate of Giuseppe Salvago-Raggi, Eritrea’s Governor from 1907 to 1915.
Zaccaria, Massimo. “Quelle splendide fotografie che riproducono tanti luoghi pittoreschi”. L’uso della fotografia nella propaganda coloniale italiana (1898-1914)” in Fiamingo, Cristiana. Identità D’africa Fra Arte E Politica. Roma: Aracne, 2008
Photography had a key part in the promotion of images portraying the colonies from the colonizers’ view. In 1890, Italy occupied Eritrea, and propaganda pro-colonialism was a major concern of the government. Massimo Zaccaria analyses the increasing importance of photographs portraying Eritrean people and lands in the government’s plan to develop relationships between the nation and the colonies. The goal was to construct a “solid popular support” to colonial expansion and colonial propaganda in the form of photography was a preferred and powerful tool.
Zaccaria, Massimo. “L’eritrea in Mostra. Ferdinando Martini E Le Esposizioni Coloniali, 1903-1906.” Africa: Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi E Documentazione Dell’istituto Italiano Per L’africa E L’oriente. 57.4 (2002): 512-545
Representing Eritrea and spreading images portraying Eritrean lands and people was a priority for Governor Ferdinando Martini for political reasons. He believed that Italians had to gain a specific idea of what the government was accomplishing in Eritrea. To do so, he used different kinds of propaganda, from newspaper articles, to photographs. Colonial expositions too served this purpose. In this essay, Massimo Zaccaria analyses the main colonial expositions, like the Turin 1884, Palermo 1891-1892, Genova 1914, among others, and the political agenda behind them.
The Empire and the Racial Laws
Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. “Writing, and Memory: The Realist Aesthetic in Italy, 1930-1950” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 627-665
Italian realism, or in Ben-Ghiat terms, the “aesthetic of the concrete,” developed in the early 1930s like in other European countries. In this essay, Ben-Ghiat discusses literary production under fascism when some intellectuals instrumentalized realism and produced narratives that represented the pragmatism and linearity associated with the regime.
Canali, Ferruccio. “Asmara, I piani regolatori funzionalisti (1936-1939),” Asup, 4, 2016, 90-110
The 1936-1939 master plans for the city of Asmara, Eritrea, were structured according to “functionalist” principles. Ferruccio Canali’s study explains that they applied a “hierarchy of infrastructure and zoning [that] would have to resolve most problems.” The author examines the reasons why the “Ferrazza Master Plan” (1937) and the “Cafiero Master Plan” (1939) exposed the discrepancy between reality and design expectations in a city, which grew tenfold its population and was industrialized in less than a decade.
Dore, Gianni. ‘Micropolitica regionale e funzionari genealogisti. La “politica indigena” degli Italiani nel Wälqayt (1936-1941)’ in Dore, Gianni, Joanna Mantel-Niecko, and Irma Taddia. I Quaderni Del Wälqayt: Documenti Per La Storia Sociale Dell’Etiopia. Torino: L’Harmattan Italia, 2005
Morone, Antonio. “Italiani d’Africa, africani d’Italia: da coloni a profughi” in Altreitalie, International Journal of Studies on Italian Migrations in the World, gennaio/dicembre 42/2011
In this analysis of migration fluxes between the 1930s and the 1950s, Morone explains the critical part that Italian settlers had in constructing the colonial society in Italy’s African colonies.
Vaccarelli, Alessandro. ‘“Faccetta nera, bell’abissina”. Rappresentazioni della donna africana nel razzismo coloniale e nel fascismo’ in A. Cagnolati, F. Pinto Minerva, S. Ulivieri, Le frontiere del corpo. Metamorfosi e mutamenti, ETS, Pisa, 2013, pp. 87-99
Post-colonial Perspectives on Italian Colonialism
Bonfiglioli, Chiara. Intersections of racism and sexism in contemporary Italy: A critical cartography of recent feminist debates, in “Darkmatter”, 6, 10 Oct. 2010
Il testo aveva la finalità di offrire al pubblico anglofono una panoramica dei dibattiti sulla questione del sessismo nei media in corso inItalia, ed era stato scritto prima del caso Ruby e prima della manifestazione femminista del 13 febbraio 2011.
Brioni, Simone. Bonsa Shimelis, Gulema. The Horn of Africa and Italy Colonial Postcolonial and Transnational Cutlrual Encounters, Peter Lang, Oxford, 2018
The essays of this collection investigate a broad range of different “encounters” that verified during colonialism between Italians and the communities in the Horn of Africa, like commercial transactions, religious exchange, and explorations among others. Additionally, attention is given to a transnational analysis of contemporary encounters between Italians, Eritreans, and Ethiopians.
Camilleri, Nicola. “Oltre i confine della cittadinanza. Appartenenza ed esclusione nell’impero coloniale italiano e tedesco.” 2019, Finist civitatis, le frontiere della cittadinanza, a cura di Marcella Aglietti.
This essay discusses German and Italian colonial rules from a comparative view. In particular, the author focuses on the links between ideas of “nation” and the laws regulating citizenship, arguing that there were similarities between the German and Italian cases. As the following quote explains: “both the Italians and the Germans during colonial rule defined their right of citizenship on the idea that a citizen has to be also a descendant of the nation intended as a community. Therefore, they applied ius sanguinis, a principle driving closed citizenship based on legacy, and opposed to the open citizenship of ius solis recognizing the right of citizenship to people born on national soil.” (p. 146)
De Michele, Grazia. “La storia dell’Africa e del colonialismo italiano nei manuali di storia,” I Sentieri della Ricerca, 3, 2006, 131-168
This study demonstrates that Italian history textbooks included deconstructing post-colonial perspectives on Italian colonialism only since 1975 onwards. The author stresses how, although the fact that some consideration has finally been given to these debates, topics such as the presence of Italian military in African territories, civil wars fought under Italian colonial rule, Italy’s war crimes committed during colonialism remain insufficiently explored. The Italian educational system is responsible, argues the author, for the lack of a historical perspective that includes the knowledge of Italy’s colonial past and legacy.
Fuller, Mia, and Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Italian Colonialism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008
This anthology presents diverse approaches to the study of Italian colonial rule exploring economic, political, cultural, and social aspects. This collection furthers the studies in anthropology, race and gender studies, film, architecture, and oral and cultural history of Italy’s colonial past.
Giuliani, Gaia. Race, Nation and Gender in Modern Italy: Intersectional Representations in Visual Culture, 2019
Gaia Giuliani investigates intersectional constructions of “race” and “whiteness” in modern and contemporary Italian cultural production. This work builds on transnational and interdisciplinary debates on racism through an analysis of political debates and social practices, focusing in particular on visual materials from the unification of Italy (1861) to the present day.
Labanca, Nicola. “Strade o stragi?” in Rossi Doria, Anna. Fiocco, Gianluca. Annali Dipartimento di Storia, 3/2007 Politiche della Memoria
Nicola Labanca discusses the rhetoric of the Italian good-fellow worked as self-absolution for Italians: they never “de-colonized” their memory. Labanca argues that this myth was perhaps the most enduring myth historians have to fight. In 2007, when this essay was released, an exoticist taste was back, Labanca observes, as well as, in his terms, a “fancy for first encounters with “Otherness,” a nostalgia for lost colonial privileges.”
Morone, Antonio M. La Fine Del Colonialismo Italiano: Politica, Società E Memorie. Firenze, Le Monnier, 2018
In this essay collection, Italian historian Morone and other authors focus on the legacy of Italian colonialism. What has been the heritage that almost a hundred years of Italian colonial rule has left to African territories? In this work, the year 1949 is central to the historical analysis as it marks a crucial phase in Italy’s de-colonization process: that year, the Italian government recognized the right to self-determinist to the ex-colonies of Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia.
Palumbo, Patrizia. A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-Unification to the Present. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 2003
This collection highlights the development of colonial discourses in Italian culture from post-unification to the present. During the Risorgimento, Africa was portrayed as a limb of a proudly resuscitated Imperial Rome. During the Fascist era, imperialistic politics were crucial in shaping both domestic and international perceptions of the Italian nation. These contributors offer compelling essays on decolonization, exoticism, fascist and liberal politics, anthropology, and historiography, not to mention popular literature, feminist studies, cinema, and children’s literature.
Piredda, Maria F. Sguardi Sull’altrove: Cinema Missionario E Antropologia Visuale. Bologna: Archetipolibri, 2012
How did missionary films by Italian Catholic groups portray the “Other”? This is the question Piredda answers in this study, while observing that there are only few studies exploring the themes, aesthetic, and techniques of missionary films.
Piredda, Maria F. Film & Mission: Per Una Storia Del Cinema Missionario. Roma: Ente dello spettacolo, 2005
In this work, Piredda traces a historiography of Catholic missionary films (mostly Italian), arguing that defining the traits of “missionary cinema” collides with both the lack of studies on this topic and with an intrinsic ambiguity.
Moretti, Erica. “Memorie private di infanzie pubbliche. I bambini libici tra colonia e campi vacanze.” Editors Valeria Deplano and Alessandro Pez, Colonialismo e identità nazionale. Milan: Mimesis, 2015. 129-147.
Erica Moretti investigates aspects of the life of settlers’ communities in Libya under Italian colonial rule. More in detail, she focuses on the repatriation of 13.000 children after Italy’s war declaration. Looking at memoires and journals, Moretti locates these personal narratives into the larger context of Italian colonial rule and its legacy.
Strangio, Donatella. “Verso L’indipendenza?: La Federazione Etiopico-Eritrea Nelle Fonti Dell’archivio Storico Della Banca D’Italia (1952-1962).” Africa : Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi E Documentazione. (2009): 1-41. Print.
This essay analyses Italian colonialism in Eritrea and Ethiopia looking at how the Italians allocated money for the colonies. What were the main exports from the colonies? How did Italy invest in Eritrea’s trade system? How did the Italian banking system operate in the colonies? How did the politics regulating economy during colonialism affect the post-colonial economic growth of Eritrea and Ethiopia? These are among the numerous questions pertaining to the economic system during colonialism (1882-1940), and during the 1950s and the 1960s that this study investigates.
Carrara: history, politics, people
Giuseppe Ugo Rescigno, Riflessioni di un giurista intorno alla moneta, L’Eco Apuano, N. 32, June, 2014
On the 25th anniversary from the foundation of the monthly local journal L’Eco Apuano, Professor Rescigno published his essay on the politics regulating the quantitative easing strategy applied by several banks all over the world.
Lido Galletto, Ricordo di Nello Masetti il ribelle “Carlin”, Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d’Italia, Comitato Provinciale Massa Carrara, Zappa Editore , 1995
This book is co-funded by the ANPI of Carrara and it reconstructs the life of Carrarese Nello Masetti nicknamed Carlin. As the Preface recites, Carlin was a partigiano who, like many others from Carrara and surroundings, fought and died for freedom and democracy.
Matteo Bogazzi, Cinquanta sfumature di oro bianco, Tipografia Catelani s.n.c., Carrara, April, 2007
Auto-biography in which the author describes episodes of his life when he came to think that the business around the so-called white gold, Carrara’s marble, was causing more damages to Carrara’s landscape and people than benefits.
Various Authors, Mario Fontana e la quarta zona operativa del Corpo Volontari della Libertà, Istituto Storico della Resistenza “Pietro Breghi”, La Spezia, 1972
First volume of the series dedicated to documents and witness of the Resistance. As detailed in the Preface, this series aims to reconstruct in detail the antifascist struggle occurred between 1945-1947 in Carrara and surroundings.
Various Authors, Sulle tracce dei Liguri Apuani, Istituto Professionale di stato per i servizi Commerciali e Turistici “Aldo Salvetti”, Paolopratali, Massa, 1999
A study of the sites witnessing the presence of the Apuani and Liguri tribes. An important collection of didactic materials realized by faculty members and students together.
Pietro Bazzell, L’opera poetica di Mauro Borgioli, Ente Carrarese di Cultura e Sport, 1984
A critical reading of the poems by Carrarese poet Mario Borgioli. The author pays particular consideration to those poems in which Borgioli celebrated the “idea of freedom inspiring the Carrarese community” (p. 7)
Local Histories and Art
Andreucci, Gian Maria. L’anarchia a Carrara. Dall’Unità alla crisi di fine secolo (1860-1898). Società Editrice Apuana, Carrara.
Caffaz, Simone. Renato Ricci. L’uomo che Hitler voleva al posto di Mussolini. Roberto Meiattini Editore, 2006.
Caffaz, Simone. Luna caput mundi. Società Editrice Apuana, Carrara, 2013.
Castagna, Elisa. Le carte della comunità di Falcinello. Parrocchia dei Santi Fabiano e Sebastiano, Falcinello, 1995.
Doornbos, Martin. Cliffe, Lionel. Ahmed, M. Ghaffar Abdel. Markakis, John. Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan. The Prospects for Peace, Recovery and Development. The Red Sea Press, Trenton, 1992.
Fekadu, Tekeste. The Tenacity and Resilience of Eritrea 1979-1983. Hdri Publishers, Asmara, 2008.
Fekadu, Tekeste. The Roads to Asmara, 1984-1991. Hdri Publishers, Asmara, 2015.
Fedaku, Tekeste. Journey. From Nakfa to Nakfa. Back to Square One (1976-1979). Hdri Publishers, Asmara, 2015.
Fruzzetti, Angela Maria. Le donne della memoria. La memoria delle donne. Racconti, testimonianze e narrazioni delle filatrici del Cotonificio Ligure di Forno. Ceccotti Editore, Carrara.
Fruzzetti, Angela Maria. Non dire niente a nessuno. Ouverture Edizioni, Grosseto, 2012.
Gentili, Elio. Falcinello. Origini, sviluppo e decadenza di un piccolo comune della Lunigiana. Agorà Edizioni, La Spezia, 2000.
Kifleyesus, Abbebe. Recollections of Return, Resettlement, and Reintegration from Gash Barka in Eritrea. Organisation for Social Science Research in eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), Addis Ababa, 2010.
Iyob, Ruth. The Eritrean Struggle for Independence. Domination, resistance, nationalism 1941-1993. Cambridge, African Studies Centre.
Marchetti, Sabrina. Le ragazze di Asmara. Lavoro domestico e migrazione postcoloniale. Ediesse, Roma, 2011.
Michelucci, Massimo. I provibiri per le industrie delle cave di marmo. Ceccotti, Massa, 1996.
Michelucci, Massimo. Note storiche sulla filanda di forno. La storia di un opificio tessile agli inizi del capitalismo italiano. Società Editrice Apuana Carrara, 2012
Pelini, Francesca (a cura di). Le radici della Resistenza. Donne e guerra, donne in guerra. Atti del Convegno di studi, Carrara, 7 luglio 2004. Plus, Pisa University Press, 2004.
Rossi, Italino. La ripresa del movimento anarchico italiano e la propaganda orale dal 1943 al 1950. Edizioni RL, 1981.
Music
Buggiani, Alessandro. Coro “Monte Sagro”. Parole Cantate, Carrara, 2001 (CD)
Rovelli, Marco. Les Anarchistes. La musica nelle strade! Canti di libertà nell’era biopolitica. Nuovi Equilibri, Roma, 2005. (CD)
Films
Venutelli, Mario. Rovagna, Claudio. Marmora. Andar per cave e studi antichi sfogliando i petali del tempo. Antologia di filmati d’epoca. Italia Nostra Onlus (DVD).
Wuytack, Fabio. Made in Italy. La storia personale del giovane regista accomunata alla storia della ex Ferrovia Marmifera Carrarese. Italia Nostra Onlus, Carrara. (DVD)