For centuries Sámi peoples had been the object of ethnological enquiry and their material culture has often been exhibited in European collections. Ethnological and colonial interests were deeply intertwined since Sápmi is rich in resources. Despite centuries of violent colonial oppression, since the 1970s Sámi ethnopolitical activism led to important social and institutional changes in Fennoscandinavia: an international Sámi council and national Sámi parliaments were established, Norway ratifing the 169 International Labour Organization convention acknowledging the Sámi as Indigenous peoples. Sámi art has had a pivotal role in articulating ethnopolitical instances while also epitomizing Sámi creativity and engagement with modernity. In 2022, Sámi art was for the first time hosted at the Venice Biennale, one of the world’s most important showcases for contemporary art. The exhibition was a success, drawing attention towards the social, environmental, and political challenges faced by Sámi people today. Notwithstanding this significant achievement, the Biennale also represents a missed opportunity for Italian academic milieux to address Italian past and current colonial attitudes towards Sámi cultures. Sámi exhibitions at institutions such as the Firenze museum of Anthropology and Ethnography are still embedded in colonially charged 19th/early-20th century ‘scientific’ frameworks. They date the from late-19th-century when Italian ethnologists embarked on scientific expeditions in Sápmi. Since Italy did not have colonial ambitions in Northern Europe, these scholars’ colonial attitudes were not driven by political agendas but by social Darwinist theories. I developed LIT to address late-19th-century Italian colonial attitudes towards Sámi peoples, examining these attitudes’ ramifications and raising awareness about how two early Italian ethnologists in Sápmi – Paolo Mantegazza and Stephen Sommier – exerted colonial abuse of power and academic violence upon Sámi people: they engaged in anthropometric research to produce photographs and collect and ethnological data, reducing their subjects’ individuality to a racial type.