Claire Dillon: “Italians promoted their occupation as a benefit to the colonized”

When art historian Claire Dillon set out to study the ruined Mogadishu Cathedral, she wasn’t merely discovering the story of an overlooked monument — her research uncovered new details about Somalia’s colonial history.

Built between 1925 and 1928 under Italian rule, the cathedral was modeled on the medieval Cathedral of Cefalù in Sicily. On the surface, it stood as a grand expression of faith and artistry. Beneath that façade, however, it was a declaration of colonial ambition and an architectural attempt to legitimize occupation. Those who led its construction envisioned a design that “would impose itself” upon the people of Mogadishu, reinforcing their vision of harmony with the city’s “environment and Oriental style.”

Drawing on previously unexamined archival documents in Rome, Dillon retraces the unlikely collaboration among missionaries, royal patrons, and Fascist officials who brought the cathedral to life. Her research situates the Mogadishu Cathedral within broader patterns of colonialism, showing how Italy’s imperial ambitions drew legitimacy from a selective reading of the medieval past. The cathedral’s so-called “Arab-Norman” design, inspired by narratives of coexistence between the Norman kings of Sicily and the island’s Muslim inhabitants, was meant to symbolize harmony between Italy and Somalia. In reality, it masked a regime built on forced labor and violent expansion. To Dillon, this “superficial representation of tolerance was actually a message of dominance.”

Claire Dillon speaks with Geeska about her findings on the Mogadishu Cathedral, revealing new insights into its motives, its “Arab-Norman” style, and how this aesthetic was rooted in attempts to justify colonial expansion under the guise of cultural and religious harmony.

Mahbub M. Abdillahi: Let’s begin with your first encounter with the Mogadishu Cathedral. How did you come across it, and what aspects of its history, architecture, or cultural context convinced you it was worth dedicating serious research to?

Claire Dillon: To answer your questions, I’ll have to jump between the modern era, when the Cathedral of Mogadishu was built, and the Middle Ages, which is the time period referenced through the building’s design. Most of my research focuses on medieval Sicily, when the island passed from the Byzantine Empire to the Aghlabids and Fatimids who were based in North Africa, and then to the Normans, who came from modern-day France and conquered Sicily in the eleventh century. Given these shifts in power and the island’s location in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sicilian society encompassed a very wide array of people. This diversity has been of great interest in the modern era, especially because it involves historical connections between Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities.

Mogadishu’s cathedral is intriguing and unusual for so many reasons: unlike the other medieval-style churches constructed in Italy’s African colonies, this cathedral stands out because it clearly follows a Sicilian model.

Sicilian history includes many examples of cultural exchange and religious understanding, which today are often leveraged to support coexistence and cooperation between people and nations around Europe, Africa, and Asia. For example, the island’s medieval past was recently used to strengthen efforts to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean with the premise that Sicily had always welcomed different people.

But, years ago, I suspected that this history must have also been used for less inclusive aims. With that in mind, I quickly came across the Cathedral of Mogadishu, which has long been known to emulate the medieval Cathedral of Cefalù, built by the Normans in northwest Sicily starting in the year 1131 CE. Mogadishu’s cathedral is intriguing and unusual for so many reasons: unlike the other medieval-style churches constructed in Italy’s African colonies, this cathedral stands out because it clearly follows a Sicilian model. It is a unique combination of my interests and areas of expertise, and its story had yet to be fully told, so I set out to understand this connection between medieval Sicily and modern Somalia.

MA: Why did the architect Antonio Vandone, along with colonial officials and missionaries, choose this “Arab-Norman” style for the cathedral?

CD: Through my research, I discovered that the so-called “Arab-Norman” style of the cathedral was intended to represent a narrative of tolerant governance in the colony, thus defusing local resistance to Italian occupation and inspiring conversion to Christianity. To understand the motivation behind this design, we have to look back to Sicily’s medieval past and its longstanding connections to the Islamic world, specifically North Africa. These relationships materialized in the architecture built by the Normans, which shares features with mosques and other monuments. For example, the bell towers of the Cathedral of Cefalù can be compared to minarets in Tunisia.

These historical connections were attractive to the colonial powers in Somalia centuries later, because they hoped that the Cathedral of Cefalù, with its Islamic elements, would appeal to Mogadishu’s predominantly Muslim population. Obviously, North Africa and East Africa are very different places, so this connection was a stretch, to say the least.

Interestingly, it took a while for the Italian authorities to decide on this medieval design for their modern cathedral. There was a great deal of debate before the Cathedral of Cefalù was ultimately selected as a model, and unfortunately, it’s not entirely clear how they initially came up with the idea. I was surprised to find other proposals in the archive, which depict churches that drew on sources ranging from the Spanish colonies in the Americas to Lombardy, in northern Italy. The surviving correspondence between the colonial officials and missionaries reveals that they ultimately chose Vandone’s “Arab-Norman” design because of the strong impression it would make in the new colonial city, and because its Islamic architectural elements supposedly complemented its local context.

MA: During its consecration, the cathedral was celebrated as a symbol of “peaceful conquest.” How should we interpret that phrase in light of the violence and coercion that defined the colonial project?

CD: “Peaceful conquest” is an oxymoron that many colonial powers used to portray themselves as benevolent occupiers. The Cathedral of Mogadishu reinforced this narrative through its reference to the medieval Norman kingdom, which was often celebrated for its tolerance of Muslims and other religious groups. When the Normans conquered Sicily in the eleventh century, the island was home to a significant Muslim population, and the new rulers wisely allowed these communities to continue many of their practices and traditions. In fact, the Norman kings adopted many of the customs of their counterparts in Muslim societies, and they also employed Muslims in the royal court, some of whom held relatively high positions. While this medieval society was not actually equal, it was nevertheless portrayed as egalitarian and pluralistic by some modern scholars during the time when the Cathedral of Mogadishu was built, and that narrative even continues to this day.

This interpretation of medieval history was useful in crafting a tolerant image during the colonization of Somalia. In reality, however, Italian rule entered a particularly violent phase during the construction of the cathedral from 1925 to 1928, to the extent that the governor of Somalia—Cesare Maria De Vecchi—even faced criticism in Italy for his harsh policies in the colony. So, the conquest was anything but peaceful.

MA: In your article, you noted the names of local laborers who participated in the cathedral’s construction, many of whom were coerced, underpaid, or injured. One account describes four Somali brothers killed in a wall collapse. What does this human cost reveal about the moral contradictions embedded within the project itself?

CD: This is one important contradiction out of many. Like most colonizers, the Italians promoted their occupation as a benefit to the colonized: the government invested in infrastructure, the missionaries provided services in education and healthcare, and so on. But of course, this was a self-serving enterprise and these initiatives came with violence and exploitation, from war crimes to poor working conditions.

While the missionaries knew about many of these issues—and they recorded some incidents in their archive—they did not discuss them publicly, so I wanted to publish as much of the information as possible. I made a point to transcribe all of the workers’ names that I found, because it is so rare to have information about the people who physically built major monuments. Usually, we only have the names of the people in power who commissioned or designed them. I also cited the oral histories collected by Haroon Q. Mohamoud, which mentioned that some workers fell to their deaths while building the cathedral.

This monument is a unique case study because it was never appropriated by the independent Somali state, unlike the many Italian administrative buildings and other sites that were repurposed.

The four brothers that you mentioned were reportedly killed in June 1926, and this episode was recorded in the archive. Their deaths were attested by two other men, who said that they all were forced to work on the site as prisoners. The surviving brother who sought reparations was later jailed for other crimes related to extortion, so the case was dismissed—on that basis, the Italian archivist at the time denied that the deaths occurred. With unresolved stories like these, there is clearly more to say about this monument, and much of that information is probably recorded in people’s memories rather than in archival documents or academic publications.

MA: What do the cathedral’s ruins reveal about the legacies of Italian colonialism and the persistence of memory in the postcolonial landscape?

CD: Iman Mohamed has written eloquently about how Italy reshaped Mogadishu’s urban environment, and that imprint still defines the city to this day, even as it has been drastically changed through decades of development and destruction. Her work opens up a complicated conversation about what should be done to remember the colonial chapter of Somalia’s history, and this discussion is far from over. The stakes are increasing, given the more recent efforts on the part of politicians and NGOs to rekindle Italian influence in Somalia.

The cathedral is a lightning rod in these conversations, especially because it was intended to be imposing by its very design, and apparently the Catholic Church still has intentions to rebuild it. This monument is a unique case study because it was never appropriated by the independent Somali state, unlike the many Italian administrative buildings and other sites that were repurposed. You could compare its current state with the Cathedral of Tripoli in Libya, which was built by the Italians around the same time but, in contrast, was turned into a mosque after independence. Even though the Cathedral of Mogadishu is in ruins and has long been neglected by scholars, I think it is one of the most central components to any conversation about the legacies of Italian colonization in the city’s built environment, given all of the issues it raises.

I encountered nearly every possible stance on the cathedral during my research, from desires to demolish it to hopes that it will be rebuilt, but I was particularly struck by a proposal that the Somali Architecture collective drafted years ago. They envisioned a repurposed site that could become a symbol of tolerance representing Somalia’s period of independence, before the war, rather than tolerance during the colonial period. That is a fascinating way to reinterpret the monument, especially since we now know that the Italians had chosen the “Arab-Norman” design to symbolize the same concept. In a sense, the collective is taking that legacy of “tolerance” and redefining it in a postcolonial context.

MA: The sites you study often bear the marks of conflict and transformation. How have those histories, sensitivities, or other difficult circumstances influenced your approach?

CD: Even when studying the distant past, I think it is essential to attend to the effects that history has in the present. The cathedral’s current context was therefore very important to me. When I started my investigation years ago, there was not much published about the cathedral, but even a quick internet search made it clear that the cathedral remains highly controversial. I consulted the online conversations sparked by Omar Degan, Sagal Abas Bafo, and many others posting across social media and online publications from Somalia and the diaspora. I also corresponded a great deal with Yusuf Shegow of the Somali Architecture collective, and around the same time, Iman Mohamed published articles that were very helpful for me.

As a scholar who is not Somali, I was careful to consider my positionality and the stories that I should—or should not—tell. For this reason, I deliberately focused my research on the colonial period and other external forces in the region, which is an approach that I feel aligns with my perspective as an outsider. I hope that, in the future, Somali scholars and other community members will share more information about the cathedral in the postcolonial period, and I would be happy to support that work in any way that I can.

You can read Dillon’s article, “Transforming Cefalù in Mogadishu: The Arabo-Normanna Cathedral of Italian Somalia and the Façade of “Peaceful Conquest,” here.