ANDREA   FRANCIONI

Il miraggio dei fosfati: la missione Sanfilippo in Tripolitania (1929-1931)

N. 177

Summary — The Italian conquest of Libya opened up a phase of extensive studies in the richness of Libyan soil, which were suspended during the First World War. By the end of the war, after the advent of Fascist dictatorship, these studies started again. The new government gave an impulse mainly to mining research: it was particularly interested in phosphates, which are artificial fertilizers, widely used in agriculture.

In this context, after a long-standing preparation, in 1929 an important mining mission to Tripolitania was organized by the Italian engineer Ignazio Sanfilippo. During two years (1929-1931) this expedition began a program of sistematic studies in the desert area of Scemech, Garian and Tarhuna, in the neighbourhood of Sokna.

Like other mining missions of the kind, this expedition too failed in its attemp and, at the beginning of 1931, Italian government stopped the researches led by Sanfilippo in Tripolitania: once again Libyan phosphates were just a mirage.