Faccetta Nera - Italian Colonial Song (+English Subtitles)

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. 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. 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 em