CICOGNANI , Luigi . - He was born in, Lugo (Ravenna) on 13 November. 1857 from Ermenegildo and, from Francesca Pisotti. He completed his studies first in Imola and Bologna, and then at the University of Pisa and Rome, where he graduated in engineering.
In 1884, together with Luigi Capucci, he organized an expedition of commercial nature directed to the Scioa, with the main purpose of making the Aussa road practicable that had been opened a short time before by Count P. Antonelli: the expedition was prepared and set up to expenses of the two and C. contributed to it for three quarters.
A first nucleus of the components of the expedition (among them was also the merchant Costanzo Bonetti and the Novarese lawyer Emilio Dulio, destined to become later a high Italian official in Somalia, who will separate, however, from the rest of the group because of some dissensions erupted among its members) departed from Genoa on November 24th. 1884, on board the "Giava", arriving first at Assab and then at Massawa, where it was reached, together with new goods and, to new means, just from C., which, both for family reasons and above all to complete the retrieval of funds needed to finance the company, had to remain in Italy and could sail from Naples on April 7th. 1885.
After returning all to Assab, they were able to leave for the interior only on July 28, heading towards the Aussa, through an arid plateau, interrupted only by the hollowed beds of the streams and a rocky and very difficult to walk. On 3 August, after having touched Margable, Adula, Uahan, Dalu, Rasa, Ascoma and Bufa, the expedition stopped in the town of Uli, almost at the foot of Mount Mussali, and in the early hours of the following day resumed the path to camp in the Magdul valley. On August 10th, after a three-day stop, travelers went up the right bank of the river Lehebit and then stopped in the valley of Daimoli, abandoned which, on August 15th, and crossed the plain of Didalu, passed the plateau of Ambuni to descend shortly afterwards in the Berelienta valley. Resumed their journey on the 19th and 21st, they entered the great plains of Ela and the next day in the valley of Jadù. On 25 August the caravan stopped in the Gumso plain: the plateau descended, its members found themselves in front of the great Doli valley and arrived, on the morning of 30 August, in the fertile plain of Buldugùm.
The difficulties to which the expedition met, provoking at first long delays and then determining, even the failure of the same (these difficulties were recalled by C. himself in a direct letter-report, in March 1888, to Crispi, president of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs) began at this point and came at first from the refusal of the Sultan of Aussa, Moḥmmed ibn Anfar, to grant the passage through his territory in the case had not been previously paid a toll of 2,000 thalers, reduced then to 2,000 after long negotiations.
At the end of October they were able to leave again for Gherfa, to arrive on November 8th in Tarsi, near the sultan of Gherfa. In this place the Capucci and the C., due to differences and divergences arose, separated from the Dulio and, while the Capucci left with the latter at the time of Scioa, where the two would be definitively divided, the C. remained instead at Gherfa , with the intention of settling in the sultan of the Danè, two days apart, in order to prepare the ground for an eventual Italian colonization in that fertile province. However, he would have been involved in the revolution erupted in the neighboring countries of the Uollo and in the consequent repression unleashed by the soldiers of the negus, for which he was left with only a few thalers and only the clothes he was wearing. he reached Borumieda on March 3, 1886, the encampment of the king of the Scioa, Menelik, from whom he was received on March 9th. On the 15th he left Borumieda and at the end of the month he came to Entotto, where he found Capucci.
At the end of July he left for the coast, together with the Milanese merchant Cesare Viscardi, to return to Italy in order to brief the government and the African Society on its mission and to obtain supplies for the commercial and industrial purposes of the expedition. But the events that occurred at the beginning of 1887, having made any commercial and industrial operation in those territories uncertain and very risky, led him to postpone his return to Africa for a while. Later, however, his health conditions and family interests forced him to abandon the project.
C. died in Lugo on 19 April. 1892.
Among the few and on the whole the few testimonies left by C. on the expedition to which it took part, a special mention belongs to the short diary, published in 1935 by Zaghi, concerning his stay in the Scioa in one of the most critical and delicate moments of the Italy's expansionist policy towards that territory: the difficulty of the Italian position in the aftermath of the decree to expel negus Giovanni and the climate of ill humor, of intrigue and slander of the environment, in the period between March and July 1886, they were, in fact, sketched with considerable effectiveness in the pages of C., who had the opportunity to know the Antonelli, the main architect and responsible for Italian initiatives, to study the environment in which he acted and operated, to experience practically the effects and consequences of the political direction he gave to Italian presence and ambitions in Africa.
Some interest, especially for the scholars of the Dancalia, also cover his brief notes on that territory, its inhabitants, their political organization, their commercial activities, appeared in the Bulletin of the African Society of Italy , V (1886), pp. 32-34, 61-66 and 270-81; VI (1887), pp. 28-39, 89-01, 127-32 and 173-79, Part of these notes were also published with the title Through the country of the Danachili (Naples 1887, Lugo 1935). In them are illustrated with wealth of data, the result of careful observation, the physical, geographic and geological characteristics of the areas included by the Margable to Murali, from Murali to Dolo and from Dolo to the Abyssinian Prealps, part of which was put in evidence the flat areas characterized by a discreet vegetation, so that the whole valley could have become, in its opinion, if conveniently used, an excellent agricultural station, particularly suitable for the cultivation of cotton. Undoubtedly useful, in a period in which the debate on the possibilities of exploitation of those areas was very lively in Italy, the indications, rather detailed, relating to the main connection routes between the Scioa and the coastal area, had to be found. which he indicated and described those of Tagiura. of Assab and Beilul, as the most comfortable, safe and functional.
Sources and Bibl .: In addition to the material that was initially unpublished and public. half a century later by the Zaghi and the brief notes of C. recalled in the text, see: E. Dulio, From the Bay of Assab to the Scioa for the Aussa , in Cosmos , IX (1886-1888), pp. 110-119, 163-172; Id., Travel notes from the Scioa to Assab , ibid ., IX (1887), pp. 289-356; M. Rossi, L. C. , In Corriere lughese , October 18, 1931; C. Zaghi, L. C., in L'Oltremare , VII (1933), pp. 334-335; Id., The origins of the Eritrea colony , Bologna 1934, pp. 84-93; Id., The shipping Capucci and C. in Abyssinia ( with unpublished letters and docum ), in Riv. of the Italian colonies , VIII (1934), pp. 668-687, 840-856 (contribution also appeared in separate editions: Rocca San Casciano 1934); Id., The unpublished diary of the mailing Capucci and C. to the Aussa in 1885 , in Boll . of the Soc . geographical ital ., s. 6, XII (1935), pp. 571- 596 (diary that is kept by the heirs of C., written, at least in part, personally by the explorer: it begins with the date of 19 August 1885 and continues until 18 October); Id., P. Antonelli and the environment scianoano in the unpublished diary of L. C. , In Nuovi Problemi , VI (1935), pp. 214-298 (contribution also appeared in a separate edition: Ferrara 1935): a short journal of the expedition, made available by the Cichi Vincenzo Cicognani, brother of the explorer, who embraces, with some interruptions, the events between 9 and 21 March and between 10 and 31 July 1886, that is to say from the day in which in the imperial field of Borumieda C. was received by Menelik until his departure for the coast (the Zaghi lopubblicò almost integrally, with the omission only of some news concerning the servants and a few other lines "where the outrage had - in his opinion - a little 'too taken our hand to our ardent Romagna": in the appendix were also published two previously unpublished letters of C., sent by Aussa , 28 September 1885, to Count Luigi-Pennazzi, and from Borumieda, March 9, 1896, to Count Antonelli); Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Committee for Documentation of the ital work. in Africa, Italy in Africa , II, The first researches of a colony and exploration . geographical area . political and economic , edited by E. De Leone, Rome 1955, pp. 175 s .; G. Manzoni, I Lughesi in African companies , 1882 - 1896 , Imola 1975, ad Indicem .
See also
Luigi Cicognani | ||||||||||
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