The Ugolini Archive in the Museo della Civiltà Romana (Rome)

Starting from July 2022, a new important research agreement has been signed by the Butrint Project.

Thanks to the interest and assistance of Claudio Parisi Presicce and Claudia Cecamore, director and supervisor, respectively, of the Museum della Civiltà Romana, we will have the chance to study the documents written by the first Italian archaeological mission in Albania. After almost one century, the Museum still preserve many of the written and typed documents witnessing the discovery of many important Albanian archaeological sites: Phoinike, Cuka e Ajtoit, Malathrea, and, most of all, Butrint. 

The Ugolini Archive comprises 160 documents, ranging from written and typed reports of excavations and various findings, work notes, letters, drawings, plans, receipts and invoices, brochures, articles from Italian and international newspapers. Along with these, there is a photographic archive composed by 290 pictures, mostly findings, monuments and inscriptions from Butrint, but also many interesting pictures from other sites, such as Phoinike, Tirana, Kryegjat. 

Luigi Maria Ugolini and other members of his team, such as Pirro Marconi, Luigi Morricone and Dario Roversi Monaco, guide us readers through all the stages of the discovery of Butrint and all activities, discoveries, news and necessities an archaeological mission had to deal with in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of these documents have already caught the attention of other researchers in these past years, which underlines how they still carry valuable information for understanding the ancient city of Butrint. The merit of the Ugolini Archive lies in this: it is an important record of a shared history, because it is a testimony of all the people, both in Italy and in Albania, who have laid the foundations for what we see today, and, at the same time, it still guides and inspires our future research.

“The southern slopes of the hill of Butrint were covered with impenetrable and old scrub. Once opened a passage - more with the eyes of desire and with the help of hope than with direct and real vision - I glimpsed a small portion of the wall.”

Luigi Maria Ugolini (1932-1933, from a lecture on the discovery of Butrint)