La Banca D’Italia Nelle Colonie Italiane : Presentazione (The Bank of Italy in the Italian Colonies: A Foreword)

This paper introduces a book concerned with the activity carried out by the Bank of Italy in the Italian colonies during less than a century (Ercole Tuccimei, La Banca d'Italia in Africa, Collana storica della Banca d'Italia, Editori Laterza, Bari, 1999). The Author traces the history of the settlements of the Bank of Italy in the former Italian colonies of Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. The Bank of Italy settled firstly in Tripoli in 1912 and later in the same year in Benghazi. In 1913 were opened the Eritrean branch offices of Asmara and Massawa. After WWI other branch offices were established in the colonies of Eritrea and of Somalia. Furthermore, following the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936, branch offices of the Bank of Italy were established in Addis Ababa and in other 6 cities as well. At the outbreak of WWII in the whole Horn of Africa the branch network of the Bank of Italy covered 12 cities: Addis Ababa, Asmara, Assab, Dessye, Diredawa, Gonder, Harar, Jima, Kismayo, Massawa, Merca, Mogadishu. In the Colonies the Bank of Italy was involved also in commercial banking and fulfilled the functions of banker and fiscal agent for the colonial government as well. At the end of the war Italy lost his colonies and all the branches of the Bank of Italy established abroad were liquidated