Abstract: This article considers how Italian travel writing centered on Libya and Tunisia promoted a consensus for imperialism before the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911-1912. Domenico Tumiati’s and Enrico Corradini’s texts contributed to a project aimed at expressing a new masculinity inspired by the spirit of ancient Rome, or romanità. This project, unfolding at the dawn of colonial archaeology in North Africa, involved the exhumation of Roman antiquity remains and of the authors’ classical memories.
