Giacomo De Martino (governor) explained

Giacomo De Martino
Order1:Italian Governor of Somaliland
Term Start1:1910
Term End1:1916
Predecessor1:Tommaso Carletti
Successor1:Giovanni Cerrina Feroni
Order2:Italian Governor of Eritrea
Term Start2:16 September 1916
Term End2:20 July 1919
Predecessor2:Giovanni Cerrina Feroni
Successor2:Camillo De Camillis
Order3:Italian Governor of Cyrenaica
Term Start3:5 August 1919
Term End3:23 November 1921
Predecessor3:Vincenzo Garioni
Successor3:Luigi Pintor
Birth Date:21 September 1849
Birth Place:London
Death Place:Benghazi

Giacomo De Martino (21 September 1849 – 23 November 1921) was an Italian politician, who was governor in the Italian colonies.[1]

Biography

Born in London in 1849 from a rich Italian family. He was one of the main supporters of the Italian colonialism since he was young. Initially he was a diplomat, but soon started to do a political career. In 1905 he was elected at the Italian Senate. In 1906 De Martino created the Istituto coloniale italiano, in order to promote the development of the Italian colonies and their management.[2]

Appointed senator (March 4, 1905), De Martino made long journeys to the Indies and to eastern and northern Africa and continued his propaganda with speeches and publications including the book Cyrene and Carthage (Bologna 1908). Appointed governor of Somalia (January 11, 1910), he began a policy of economic strengthening of that colony and of affirmation and expansion of Italian dominion, starting studies for the construction of a port, a road network and a railway towards the interior, making the first attempts at white colonization, establishing the regime of agricultural concessions on the Giuba and initiating the first contacts with the populations of the Oltre-Giuba. The dams of the Scebeli, the Genale dam and the relative state experimental company, and the purchase of Mahaddei-Uen on the Scebeli, Bur Acaba and Baidoa date back to him. As governor of the Colony of Eritrea (1916-1919), De Martino gave great impetus to public works, such as the construction of the customs sheds of Massawa, the building development of Asmara, the extension of the railway line in Cheren and beyond, towards the Gasc, the plants of the first mountain hydroelectric basin with the Belesa dam, and the industrial agricultural setting of Tessenei. On 1 July 1919, De Martino was sent to govern Cyrenaica. Treccani E.[3]

He had held several colonial posts as he had been a governor of the Italian colonies of Somaliland (1910–1916),[4] Eritrea (1916–1919), and finally Cyrenaica (1919–1921), where he had died at office of heart attack.

See also

Notes

  1. Web site: Italian Senate: Giacomo De Martino . 2015-09-15 . 2016-03-04 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304044513/http://notes9.senato.it/web/senregno.nsf/4c1a0e70e29a1d74c12571140059a394/fb4b4895a600fcc34125646f005aff82?OpenDocument . dead .
  2. https://books.google.com/books?id=26ARAAAAYAAJ&dq=senatore+giacomo+de+martino&pg=PA257 Rivista coloniale: Giacomo De Martino per la cultura coloniale (in Italian)
  3. https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/de-martino-giacomo-conte_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/ Conte Giacomo De Martino (in italian)
  4. Web site: De Martino's Report about Italian Somalia (in Italian) . 2015-09-15 . 2017-02-18 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170218082155/http://dspace-roma3.caspur.it/bitstream/2307/2996/1/Relazione%20sulla%20Somalia%20italiana%20del%20governatore%20nobile%20Giacomo%20De%20Martino%20%28...%29.pdf . dead .

Bibliography