Prints and Ephemera

ETH 476

REPORT BY DR. GUIDO MANGANO (sent by the Ministry) to the Governor General of AOI. The subject is the property of the former negus in Biscioftu and Addis Abeba. 10 pages, not dated but clearly 1936. Good condition.

Price: 250.00

ETH 475

Small archive belonging to Nino Carlo Pozzati. He was a court administrator in Asmara until captured. He was a POW in South Africa. Included are a letter of appreciation to him from the POW camp commander upon his repatriation in September, 1945; a photo of himself; a photo of him at a tribunal hearing, under the sign THE LAW IS EQUAL FOR ALL; the order from the Colonial Troop Command in Naples to embark for Massaua and his first class ticket from Lloyd Triestino.

Price: 400.00

Personnel files of Carlo Chiavellati, who was commander of the Black Shirt 102nd Legion “Cacciatori del Tevere”. He served with the 6th Battalion CCNN in Ethiopia and was mobilized January 21, 1936. SOLD

Price: $900.00

EPM 092

ETH 453

Complete commercial photo booklet Ricordo Africa Orientale Italiana, part 1. 32 views.

Price: 300.00

ETH 452

Letter written from a soldier based in Addis Abeba, July 7, 1937 to a friend in Rome. The stationary masthead reads ADDIS-ABEBA COMBAT ZONE.

Price: 40.00

ETH 451

Cover envelope featuring FACETTA NERA and a beautiful Abyssinian on the cover.

Price: 140.00

Note from Wikipedia: "'Faccetta Nera'" ("Little Black Face" or "Pretty Black Face") is a popular marching song of Fascist Italy about the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. It was written by Renato Micheli with music by Mario Ruccione in 1935. The lyrics are written from the perspective of a fascist Italian Blackshirt soldier during the invasion of Ethiopia. In the song, the Italian narrator tells a beautiful young enslaved Abysinnian (Ethiopian) girl that she will be liberated from slavery and ruled by a new regime. She is invited to parade with the fascist Blackshirts in Rome, where she is promised a new and better life. Slavery in Ethiopia is a prominent theme in the song. The song follows the trend of Italian fascist propaganda portraying the invasion not as a war of conquest, but as a war of liberation to abolish Ethiopian slavery.

Italian notice, signed by General Emilio De Bono, proclaiming the abolishment of slavery in Tigray in Italian and Amharic. The abolition of slavery was one of the first measures taken by the Italian colonial government in Ethiopia. The hymn is said to have been inspired by a beautiful young Abyssinian girl, who was found by the Italian troops at the beginning of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.

During the invasion, the song was hugely popular in Italy and caused national fervor. During the fascist occupation of Ethiopia, Ethiopian women cohabited with Italian men in a system of concubinage known as madamato. The implicitly erotic song was, however, somewhat of an embarrassment for the Fascist government, which had, starting in May 1936, introduced several laws prohibiting cohabitation and marriage between Italians and native people of the Italian colonial empire. These efforts culminated in the Italian Racial Laws of 1938. The Fascist authorities considered banning the song, and removed all picture postcards depicting Abyssinian women from Roman shop windows.

ETH 450