The Italian Archaeological Mission

In many ways the Butrint we see today was configured by Luigi Maria Ugolini through his excavations between 1928 and 1936.

In the early 1920s Albania was a very young nation attempting to find its feet in post First World War Europe. A number of conflicting territorial disputes with surrounding countries still smouldered on and the country was still largely an unknown quantity.

In these circumstances the Italian government despatched an archaeological mission led by the young Luigi Maria Ugolini to survey the country and excavate at Phoenicê and later Butrint. A capable and energetic archaeologist, Ugolini was also a romantic belonging to an interwar generation striving to justify Italy’s Fascist revolution. Hence, the mythological origins of Butrint that for long had been integral to the attraction of the site for artists and Grand Tourists were now applied in the service of archaeological excavations.