Colocci, Adriano

(1855-1941)

   Italy. Author. An Italian Gypsylorist. He met Gypsies during a visit to the Balkans and wrote a book about them, Gli Zingari: Storia di un popólo errante [Gypsies: History of a Wandering People; 1889]. He was later elected president of the Gypsy Lore Society. He was not just an amateur student of Gypsy lore, for he also took up the defense of the Gypsies in 1911 at the First Ethnographic Congress in Rome, where he denounced intolerance against Gypsies. He also opposed a proposal in the Italian Parliament to ban the immigration of Gypsies.