Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti
Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti
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Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti

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Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti

Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti (21 May 1855 – 31 May 1926) was an Italian explorer, geographer, cartographer and naturalist.

Robecchi Bricchetti was the illegitimate son of Ercole Robecchi, a land owner from Zerbolò, and a young seamstress, Teresa Brichetti. He grew up with his mother and used her name until his father recognized the paternity after a lengthy legal battle. In 1874 Luigi changed his family name to Robecchi Bricchetti.

Robecchi Bricchetti enrolled at the faculty of Civil Engineering at the University of Pavia and then continued his education at the University of Zurich and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where he eventually graduated.

He was a person of many cultural and scientific interests (ethno-anthropology, geography, geology, zoology, etc.), with an excellent knowledge of languages, including German and Arabic, which he spoke fluently. He dedicated himself intensively to study and combat widespread slavery in Africa.

A classic nineteenth-century explorer, he returned to his home in Pavia from his travels with a large number of objects and African documents. During his last trip to Africa in 1903 he freed a Somali Bantu woman and her son from slavery and brought them with him to Pavia. He later legally adopted the boy, who took the name of Mabruc Robecchi Bricchetti. Robecchi Bricchetti died in Pavia in 1926.

Robecchi Bricchetti spent much of his time travelling to Africa. He was the first European [citation needed] explorer to visit extensively the Horn of Africa region, also referred to as Benadir, to which he gave its current name of Somalia.

In 1885, he travelled to Egypt, from where he reached the Oasis of Siwa in the Libyan desert. finds In 1888 he travelled to Zeila in Somalia. He then crossed the Danakil Desert, and arrived in Harrar, Ethiopia, where he lived for several months and conducted a series of scientific studies . He collected many poems circulating in the region at the time including some that covered the sage Guled Haji and the demise of the powerful Sultan Hersi Aman.

In 1890, he returned to Somalia where he explored the then unknown region of Hobyo. His journey covered an area of more than two thousand kilometers until he reached Alula, and is documented by a large number of maps and photographs that he put together during the trip.

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