Italian colonists in the Dodecanese the Leros town of Lakki (founded by the Italians as "Portolago"), which remains a prime example of Italian Rationalism. From 1923 to 1936, governor Mario Lago was able to integrate the Greek, Turkish and Ladino Jewish communities of the island of Rhodes with the Italian colonists. Lago's term of office constituted what might in retrospective be called the "Golden Period" of the Italian Dodecanese, with the economy booming and a relatively harmonious society. In the 1936 Italian census of the Dodecanese islands, the total population was 129,135, of which 7,015 were Italians. Nearly 80% of the Italian colonists lived in
Mediterraneo Mediterraneo Mediterraneo is a 1991 Italian film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992. The film is set during World War II and regards a group of Italian soldiers who become stranded on a Greek island, and are left behind by the war. The filming took place on the Greek island of Kastellórizo, in the Dodecanese island complex. In 1941, one year after Italy joined Germany against the Allies in World War II, a small group of misfit Italian soldiers is sent to a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea for four months of