The team began its work under the previous government. The aim is to gather preliminary data of the weapons, artifacts, and ritual objects Italian museums may hold, to respond to requests for restitution that have only increased amid a general reckoning over the legacies of European colonial empires.
The museums reason they can no longer hold the objects in good conscience if they were acquired as a result of historical violence, colonial occupation, looting or war.
It is remarkable as Premier Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the neo-fascist successor party of dictator Benito Mussolini and Mussolini’s regime is most closely associated with Italy’s North African colonies Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya and Somalia.
Italy’s empire began in the late 19th century, but Mussolini tried to expand it, only to be forced to relinquish it after World War II, with Italy’s final administration of Somalia ending in 1960.
