The second half of the 19th century was a decisive historical period in the economic and geopolitical development of Italy. Immediately after Unification, Italy followed in the steps of other great European nations, participating in the colonial race and arriving as far as the Horn of Africa and the coast of North Africa.

Eritrea
Eritrea is a thin coastal stretch between Ethiopia and the Red Sea. Without considering the first Italian settlements at Assab and Massaua, the “colony of Eritrea” was established on January 1, 1890 and was to last until May 1936 when it became part of Italian East Africa.

Somalia
On the Eastern border of the Horn of Africa, the central zone was also known as Benadir, Arab for ‘ports’. Apart from initial settlement attempts, the protectorates and contracts to private companies, in 1905, Italy established its second colony, “Southern Italian Somalia” (soon to become only “Italian Somalia”), corresponding to Benadir, i.e. to the territory of Mogadishu. The North, comprising local sultanates, was administered as a protectorate. Local coins – which varied in time – in circulation tended to complicate exchange rates with the Lira. Between 1925 and 1927, the Lira became the sole currency, the entire territory was placed under colonial rule, eliminating the protectorates and effectively taking possession of these.
Trans-juba
This is a small area, formerly part of British Kenya, bordering on Somalia, on the right of the Jubba River from which it takes its name. The capital was Kysmayo, a port on the Indian Ocean. On June 29, 1925, Great Britain ceded the territory to Italy within the framework of the agreements that had resulted in Italy entering into war, with France, Great Britain and Russia, against Austria in the First World War. It was administered as an independent colony for a year and then annexed to Somalia on July 1, 1926, becoming an integral part of this.

Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Libya
Immediately South of Italy, the territory of modern Libya between Egypt and Tunisia is divided into two very different regions. To the East, bordering on Tunisia, Tripolitania with capital Tripoli and to the West, Cyrenaica, with capital Bengasi. At the start of the century, the two regions were geographically, culturally and ethnically very different from each other and communicated not by land but only by sea. When, in 1911, Italy organized the two regions under colonial regime, it created two separate colonies, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, bordering on each other in the desert, i.e. in Sirtica. The two colonies lived separate, albeit parallel lives until December 1934 when they were united in a single colony called Libya. From this date, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica ceased to exist and a new colony was born. In 1938, the coastal strip of Libya was divided into four provinces (Tripoli, Misurata, Bengasi and Derna) and considered Italian and not colonial territory, but this did not have any repercussions on postage stamps.

The Aegean
The Dodecanese, literally ‘twelve islands’, are a group of 13 islands (i.e. 12 plus the main island Rhodes) in the Aegean sea between Greece and Turkey in a delightful position and with a magnificent climate. Italy occupied the islands in 1912 during the war with Turkey which owned them at that time and then retained possession of these also in the postwar period. On March 1, 1921, the island of Castelrosso, much further to the East, closer to the Turkish coast and at a distance from the archipelago, was added to the other islands. The regime of the territory, which subsequently took the official name of the Italian islands of the Aegean, was not colonial as in Africa but was administered as a possession. Although there was not much difference from administrative point of view, this fact had far-reaching repercussions from a philatelic point of view. The islands, according to the official Italian denomination of the Thirties, were: Rodi, Cos, Stampalia, Lero, Calimno, Carchi, Scarpanto, Caso, Lipso, Nisiro, Patmo, Piscopi, Castelrosso.

Ethiopia, Italian East Africa
Ethiopia was a vast independent territory in the Horn of Africa, governed by a feudal system. Italy took possession of Ethiopia with a war initiated in October 1935 and ending the year after. On May 1, 1936 Ethiopia was annexed and all the territory comprising Ethiopia and the former Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia (which then ceased to exist) was organized into the Empire: Italian East Africa. The Italian colonies and possessions were occupied by the Anglo-Americans or by the Germans between 1941 and 1943, and Italian rule effectively ceased, as did the use of Italian stamps.

Postage Stamps and the Postal Authorities of Italian Somalia
Two particular regimes were adopted in Somalia at the start of the 20th century. One regarded currency: without going into details, an Indian coin was in circulation, the “anna” divided into “besa”, whose values and exchange rates varied in time; these coins were used until 1925. The other was the colonial regime: administration was entrusted to a private company more interested in making a profit than administration, so much so that in 1905 Italy revoked the concession and assumed governance of the colony. In 1903, the company issued a set of seven stamps featuring vignettes of lions and elephants, with the main intention of selling these in Italy considering that, in that period, there were only 20 or slightly fewer Italians in and around Mogadishu. For these reasons, “exotic” images were proposed, designed without any particular studies or information, as suggested by the fact that the lions of Somalia are of a particular type with a small mane and differ considerably from those represented, while the presence of elephants in the region was unknown. Apart from these considerations, the “lions and elephants” stamps were the first ordinary stamps specifically created for a colony and were designed with great artistic care and attention by the renowned contemporary artist Leopoldo Metlicovitz (as has recently been discovered), also author of advertising posters: they are undeniably very beautiful stamps. These stamps were issued in various versions (due to different changes of currency) until 1926, continuing to be more or less the only stamps available. The definitive series was printed in 1932 by the State Mint and the designs show the Francesco Crispi lighthouse (on 5, 7 ½ ,10 and 15 cent stamps.), the Mnara tower of Mogadishu, the Governor’s Palace of Mogadishu, a termite nest, an ostrich, a hippopotamus, a Greater Kudu and a typical Somalian lion. In Somalia in this period, postal services were furnished by nine main post offices which provided all the various services with the same characteristics as the Kingdom and thirty-four secondary post offices which furnished postal services valid only inside the Colony.

By Matteo Armandi