Tra scienza e amministrazione: Carlo Conti Rossini durante e dopo la dominazione coloniale

Carlo Conti Rossini’s work is still now considered an essential lens to approach the Horn of Africa, especially the region of today Eritrea. In fact, the contribution of knowledge given by the above-mentioned scholar, who also was the founder of the Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, is immeasurable and covers different scientific fields, from ethnography to philology and history. Despite the international reputation of Conti Rossini and the acknowledged esteem for his scientific heritage, a critical elaboration of his scholarship has been until now only touched upon. The present article aims at addressing this gap and putting the author of Principi di diritto consuetudinario dell’Eritrea in a new light; it does it by retracing on the one hand his life spent between science and administration and by highlighting on the other hand the consequences of his work still in postcolonial age. The article wishes to be a incitement to a postcolonial intellectual biography of Carlo Conti Rossini.