A Gallery of Italian Colonialism

Fabio Sappino

by Fabio Sappino
published on 04 September 2025

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Use of the Racist Song 'Faccetta Nera' in an Advertisement

by Luciano Bonacini
published on 02 September 2025

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Use of the Racist Song 'Faccetta Nera' in an Advertisement — View Full-Size Image

In 1935, Renato Micheli composed the song 'Faccetta Nera' (Pretty/little black face) to commemorate the invasion of Ethiopia. The lyrics recount the liberation of a young Ethiopian woman from slavery by a fascist Blackshirt. This march, very popular in Italy, fueled propaganda that portrayed the invasion of Ethiopia as a civilizing mission, concealing the brutalities of Italian colonization. In this picture, the song's title and a verse accompany a stereotypical image of an African woman to advertise a candy brand.

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Original image by Luciano Bonacini. Uploaded by Fabio Sappino, published on 02 September 2025. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.