The Italian archaeological expedition’s trip to the mountainous, harsh and wild region of Lasta on the East-African plateau lasts about a month, between April and May 1939, and the artist has the opportunity to carry out several drawings of the places and the buildings, which he will put into the series of etched plates in the following ten years. The first 16 plates of views are engraved between 1939 and 1943. An early 1/50 impression of these is carried out on single leaves not bearing the progressive numbering by Roman numerals on the plates, which is put only when the sheets are collected in a portfolio and 5 more leaves are added (frontispiece, dedication to the Duke of Aosta, table of contents, introductory note, location plan). The first edition of the portfolio, including 12 not-for-sale numbered copies and 5 special copies, is published in 1943; copy no. 2 is kept at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome.