Faccetta Nera (Italian: "Little Black Face") is a popular marching song of Fascist Italy about the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. It was written by Renato Micheli with music by Mario Ruccione in 1935. The lyrics describe how Italian soldiers will liberate a beautiful young Abysinnian (Ethiopian) girl from slavery and take her back to Rome, where she is promised a new and better life. The lyrics explain she will be under the authority of a new regime, and she will parade with the fascist Blackshirts.
Italian notice, signed by general Emilio De Bono, proclaiming the abolishment of slavery in Tigray in Italian and Amharic. The abolition of slavery was one of the first measures taken by the Italian colonial government in Ethiopia.
The hymn is said to have been inspired by a beautiful young Abyssinian girl, who was found by the Italian troops at the beginning of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
During the invasion the song was hugely popular in Italy and caused national fervor.[1] The implicitly erotic song was, however, somewhat of an embarrassment for the Fascist government, which had, starting in May 1936, introduced several laws prohibiting cohabitation and marriage between Italians and native people of the Italian colonial empire.[1] These efforts culminated in the Italian Racial Laws of 1938. The Fascist authorities considered banning the song, and removed all picture postcards depicting Abyssinian women from Roman shop windows.[1]
