The Archaeologist of Mussolini (Trailer)

Produced by Zeeva Production

Rome 1923. Fascist Italy wants to have an always greater role in the Balkan chessboards with the aim of making again the Mediterranean the “Mare Nostrum”, in virtue of the boasted inheritance of greatness derived from the Roman Empire to which the regimen inspires.

Albania, a country rich in mines and oil fields, and from the geographic point of view, a privileged access to the Balkans, is the centre of political intrigues and of the international espionage in which the greatest European powers will be involved. Luigi Maria Ugolini, a young archaeologist from Bertinoro, officially sent in order to direct the Italian Archaeological Mission in Albania, finds himself unwillingly involved in the great “Balkan game”. Albania is a primary objective to reach at all costs and archaeology must become a mean of penetration in order to lay the ideological foundations for the annexation of Albania and set up the base of attack to Greece.

Between lights and shades, Ugolini, considered by the most a pioneer of modern archaeology, will bring back to light, among thousands difficulties either financial or political, the site of Phoinike and the extraordinary city of Butrint, the “Albanian Pompei”, tied to the myth of Aenea and protected by U.N.E.S.C.O. like a masterpiece of the humanity.

Photograph: L.M. Ugolini

Biography: Luigi Maria Ugolini (1895-1936)

Ugolini was born in the small town of Bertinoro in the Italian Romagna, the son of a poor watchmaker. He shone at school and after service in the First World War in the Alpini studied archaeology at Bologna University. He was soon talent spotted by major figures in the Italian archaeological establishment of the early years of the fascist government. Between 1924 and 1935 Ugolini undertook several research visits to Albania and the Maltese Islands. This work led him to excavate Phoenicia and Butrint in southern Albania where he discovered many important monuments and to record and study the prehistoric sites and the artefacts held at the Valletta Museum and to publish the results of the survey. 

In 2000 the archive of Ugolini’s photographs and notes, believed to have been lost, were “rediscovered” in the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “Luigi Pigorini” in Rome. A publication recently released commemorates the research of Luigi Ugolini by displaying, for the first time in Malta, part of the archive documenting the survey work undertaken by him and his collaborators.

The manuscripts and the photographs in the archive are not only precious historical documents but are also a useful tool in the management and conservation of Malta’s prehistoric sites and artefacts. The archive also deserves to reach wider audiences since it is testimony to the contribution of past generations in shaping our understanding of Malta’s archaeological heritage.

ZEEVA PRODUCTION

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