Vol. 154 (2024): Archivio per l'Antropologia e la Etnologia
Research Papers

The colonial face casts of Nello Puccioni: an emblematic case from Italy's fascist period

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  • Francesca Bigoni,
  • Fausto Barbagli,
  • Fabio Di Vincenzo
Francesca Bigoni
Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze - Sede di Antropologia e Etnologia
Fausto Barbagli
Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze - Sede La Specola
Fabio Di Vincenzo
Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale - Sapienza Università di Roma
The cover of the CLIV_2024 volume
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/aae-3084

Published 2024-11-19

Keywords

  • decolonization,
  • visual anthropology,
  • museology,
  • three-dimensional representation,
  • African studies

How to Cite

Bigoni, F., Barbagli, F., & Di Vincenzo, F. (2024). The colonial face casts of Nello Puccioni: an emblematic case from Italy’s fascist period. Archivio Per l’Antropologia E La Etnologia, 154, 3–17. https://doi.org/10.36253/aae-3084

Copyright (c) 2024 Francesca Bigoni, Fausto Barbagli, Fabio Di Vincenzo

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This article focuses, for the first time, on an in depth and systematic study of the face casts production of the Florentine anthropologist Nello Puccioni. The face casts are housed at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology of the University of Florence. Puccioni took the face casts in the course of his expeditions to Somalia (1924 and 1935) and Libya (1928 and 1929) during the Italian colonial occupation in Africa. This collection represents an emblematic case study of sensitive artefacts created, displayed and disseminated during fascism. This research represents an essential step in the well-needed process of decolonization of the Florentine museum and its contents.

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