Silk, Coral and Fiat: Italy’s long economic ties with India

12 min readSwedenSep 17, 2026 10:19 AM IST First published on: Sep 17, 2026 at 10:19 AM IST

In February 1896, Primo Lanzoni, a professor at Venice’s Higher School of Commerce, set out for India with Gualtiero Fries, a representative of the company that operated Italy’s Adriatic railway network. They had been given a practical assignment: to study Indian imports and exports, identify goods Italy could sell, find firms worth dealing with, and determine how traffic between Europe and India might be channelled through Venice and the Suez route rather than rival ports.

Less than a month after their journey began, an Italian army was defeated by the forces of Emperor Menelik II at Adwa in Ethiopia, East Africa. The two seemingly unrelated episodes unfolded almost simultaneously. While Italy was attempting to expand its territorial empire in Africa, Italian commercial planners were travelling through British India in search of markets and trading connections. One sought territory; the other, commercial access.

By the late nineteenth century, Italy had acquired colonies of its own and was actively seeking greater influence overseas. Its position in colonial India, however, was more complicated. Here, Italy operated without territory, jurisdiction, or political control.

This is the story of Italians in colonial India, caught between opportunity, enterprise and British control.