Al servizio di due paesi. Sulle tracce di Angelo Sammarco (1883–1948), storico dell’Egitto moderno

Angelo Sammarco (Acerra, 14 October 1883 — Torre del Greco, 12 September 1948) is mainly known for his studies on the role of Italians in the formation and development of the modern Egyptian state. After moving to Cairo in 1922, he was a teacher of history at the local Italian high school and a trusted official of King Fuʾād. He combined historical research and institutional commitment, personally contributing to the great project of reconnaissance and copying of the documentation on Egypt preserved in foreign state archives, papers that later became part of the royal collections of the ʿ⁠Ābdīn Library. His publications were also fairly widely circulated in Italy: his criticism of British hegemony in the Nile region was in fact well suited to the colonial aspirations of Fascism, as well as the nationalist cause of the Egyptian monarchy. In this contribution, born at the same time as the work of ordering Sammarco’s papers kept at the Istituto per l’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino, an attempt has been made to give an initial systematization to a biographical story still full of gaps — especially as regards the years prior to his move to Egypt — through the study of his historiographical production and of almost unpublished archive documents.