Riccardo Astuto di Lucchese (January 1, 1882 – August 25, 1952) was an Italian diplomat and writer.
Transferred to Cyrenaica, he held several positions (secretary general in Benghazi, regional commissioner in Derna), including that of director (1919), until the disagreement with the governor Giacomo De Martino on the conciliation policy implemented with the Senussi forced him to a new series of transfers: first in Somalia, from 1922 in Tripolitania and then from June of the following year again in Cyrenaica.
After being long director general of the Ministry of Colonies (1924-1930), from mid-July 1930 until mid-January 1935 he was governor of Eritrea.
[3] He promoted the construction of the railway from Asmara to the border with Sudan, but WW2 blocked this project.
In his writings of the late 1920s he paid attention to Africa's problems, advocating the possibility of incorporating it into the European socio-political structure ("Eurafrica"), while those of the late 1930s deal with the problem of race, adhering, in line with the spirit of the fascist racial laws of the period, to the "canon" of safeguarding Aryan purity in Africa.