This map was published in 1940 as the back cover of many notebooks provided in schools by the Fascist Italian government.

This particular copy belongs to a fifth-grade school notebook belonging to a pupil from the village of Canepina, in the Lazio region. The map shows the flag of Fascist Italy flying over a map of the Mediterranean Sea, which is labelled as Our Sea.

Fascist propaganda placed great emphasis on drawing parallels between the Roman Empire and the Italian state in an attempt to legitimise its expansionist aspirations throughout the Mediterranean, as it did when it invaded Albania and Libya during the early years of the Second World War.

Sources

• Notebook 1940/1941 – Canepina, Viterbo, Lazio