Reassessing (Hi)stories of Early Italian Colonialism: The Afterlives of Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti's African Collections in Italy and Beyond

Our project will reassess the history/story of Italian colonialism in the Horn of Africa by re-signifying the vast collections of objects, archival documents and photographs amassed by geographer and explorer Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti (1855-1926) and tracing their afterlives. Bricchetti's is an emblematic case study capable of illuminating complex transnational networks of early European imperialism. We will offer new paradigms for understanding how Italian colonialism came about through our attention to the information and objects he collected and their reception. Specifically, we will analyse: (1) how Bricchetti's travels enhanced geographical, linguistic and cultural knowledge of territories in order to facilitate their later occupation by Italy; (2) how his activities helped to create a cultural imaginary of (future) colonies, and to generate broader Italian knowledge about Africa; and (3) the importance of other European agents, African intermediaries and communities for his work. Born in Pavia, Bricchetti explored territories of colonial interest in Egypt, Libya, and the Horn of Africa (present-day Somalia and Southern Ethiopia) between 1885 and 1903. He donated most of the materials he collected to his birth city. On Fascist Italy's inaugural 'Colonial Day' (21 April 1926), this collection became the 'Colonial Section' of the city museum. Bricchetti died one month later. He was well-known in his time as an intrepid explorer and geographer and was posthumously celebrated as a 'pioneer of empire'. Since the Second World War, in a wider trend of colonial amnesia, Bricchetti's name has fallen into obscurity. His collections, which lie in storage and are in serious need of conservation, have never been comprehensively surveyed. Nor has his complicated legacy yet been reconsidered from a critical and decolonial perspective. Our research will decentre Bricchetti as a figure by shifting focus to the networks implied in his collections. We will analyse how early Italian colonialism was promoted through Bricchetti's collections and displays, writings and public lectures in his lifetime, but also why this story does not (yet) form part of public memory either in Italy or the countries he explored. To this end, we will involve people from various communities and countries implicated in Bricchetti's collecting, in order to co-create new, more inclusive histories of African-Italian relations for the present and future. Working at the interface of public history, memory studies and museology, we will transform historical consciousness of how and why Italy became a colonial power through a range of self-reflexive research activities and imaginative co-created outputs. The project has the following key objectives: (a) to survey, catalogue and part-digitize Bricchetti's collections in Pavia; and (b) to conduct comparative research across the Pavia collections and related archival and museum collections in Italy, Egypt and Ethiopia. This work will bring about the following key benefits: (i) increased accessibility of the collections; (ii) greater scholarly and public understanding of the early stages of the Italian colonial mission in Africa; and (iii) diverse forms of cultural restitution through connecting collections and communities across Italy and the Horn of Africa, providing training opportunities, generating knowledge-sharing opportunities, and enhancing cultural links.