1. The Liberal Era
Ramadan al-Suwayhili, together with Sulayman al-Baruni and other tribal chiefs, created the Tripolitanian Republic in 1918.
Sayyid Idris al-Sanusi signed a peace treaty with the Italians (the Akrama Agreement, April 1917).
Italy passed the Legge fondamentale (June and October 1919). Each province was to have its own Parliament and governing councils. Libyans were promised the right to a special Libyan-Italian citizenship, were exempted from military conscription, and could only be taxed by the locally elected Parliament.
In October 1920, the Accord of al-Rajma recognised Idris as-Sanusi as Amir of Cyrenaica.

2. Italo Balbo (1934-1940) Libya: Italy’s Fourth Shore (1934)
Italian citizenship was granted to natives
Enlargement and Modernisation of Tripoli
The Via Balbia
State-directed peasant colonisation
1938: 20,000 (Ventimila)
1939: 10,000

3. The official ceremony in Piazza Castello, Tripoli 1939.
Italo Balbo presents the certificate of citizenship to natives, Tripoli 1939.

4. Il palazzo dell’INFPS, Tripoli.
Corso Sicilia, Tripoli.
Palazzo del governatore, Tripoli.
Hotel Casino Uaddan, Tripoli.

5. Visitors’ plan of the city of Tunisi (undated, 1920?)

6. Art Deco building, Tunis
La Fayette quarter, Tunis

7. Place de la République, Tunis La Fayette quarter, Tunis. Caryatides

9. The Via Balbia or Via Balbo, a coastal highway running from Tunisia to Egypt

10. The Via Balbia at the Marble Arch
In the middle of Via Balbia, the border of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica was marked by a Marble Arch, named Arch of Fileni. It was created by the Italian architect Florestano Di Fausto. The “Arch of Fileni” was demolished in 1970 by the revolutionary regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

11. The municipal building
Italian rural villages in Libya
The Casa Littoria
The Catholic church
The municipal building
The main square

12. A farmhouse of the Ente per la colonizzazione della Libia (ECL)
View of a plot of land with farmhouse
A farmhouse of the Ente per la colonizzazione della Libia (ECL)

13. Disembarkation of the Ventimila in Tripoli, 1938.

14. Balbo greets settlers who are leaving for the village Crispi, 1938.
Military trucks are used for the displacement.

15. Italo Balbo with Italian peasant women
The village Giovanni Berta, 1937.
Italo Balbo with Italian peasant women

16. The visit of Mussolini to Libya, 1937
Mussolini brandishes the ‘sword of Islam’